THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT 


THE  GOOSE  MAN 


The  GOOSE  MAN 


by  JACOB  WASSERMANN 

cAvahor  of 

"THE  WORLD'S  ILLUSION" 


cAuthorized  translation  by 
ALLEN  W.  PORTERFIELD 


GROSSET  er  DUNLAP  <v.  Publishers 

by  arrangement  "With 
HARCOURT,  BRACE  &.  COMPANY 


NOTE 

The  first  chapter,  "A  Mother  Seeks  Her  Son,"  and  sections  I 
and  ii  of  the  second  chapter,  "Foes,  Brothers,  a  Friend,  and  a 
Mask,"  were  translated  by  Ludwig  Lewisohn.  The  rest  of  the 
book  has  been  translated  by  Allen  W .  Porterfield.  The  title,  "The 
Goose  Man"  ("Das  Gdnsemdnnchen"),  refers  to  the  famous  statue 
of  that  name  in  Nuremberg. 


COPYRIGHT,  1922,  BY 
HARCOURT,   BRACE  AND  COMPANY,   INC. 


PMINTKD    IN    THE    U.  •     A. 


Li:  i  -u-y 

TT 


CONTENTS 

PAGI 

A  Mother  Seeks  Her  Son        .                         ...  1 

Foes,  Brothers,  A  Friend  and  a  Mask     .  23 

The  Nero  of  To-day      ....                  ...  44 

Inspector  Jordan  and  His  Children        .                  ...  65 

Voices  from  Without  and  Voices  from  Within                .         .  97 

In  Memory  of  a  Dream  Figure              .  123 

Daniel  and  Gertrude                        153 

The  Glass  Case  Breaks    .                  ......  178 

Tres  Faciunt  Collegium 204 

Philippina  Starts  a  Fire   .                  239 

Eleanore           ....                  ....                 .  277 

The  Room  with  the  Withered  Flowers  323 
The  Promethean  Symphony    .         .                 .         .                  .352 

Dorothea          .  .405 

The  Devil  Leaves  the  House  in  Flames  43  5 

But  Aside,  Who  Is  It?              .                                                   .  455 


683050 


THE  GOOSE  MAN 


A  MOTHER  SEEKS  HER  SON 


THE  landscape  shows  many  shades  of  green;  deep  forests,  mostly 
coniferous,  extend  from  the  valley  of  the  Rednitz  to  that  of  the 
Tauber.  Yet  the  villages  lie  in  the  midst  of  great  circles  of 
cultivated  land,  for  the  tillage  of  man  is  immemorial  here. 
Around  the  many  weirs  the  grass  grows  higher,  so  high  often  that 
you  can  see  only  the  beaks  of  the  droves  of  geese,  and  were  it  not 
for  their  cackle  you  might  take  these  beaks  to  be  strangely  mobile 
flowers. 

The  little  town  of  Eschenbach  lies  quite  flat  on  the  plain.  In 
it  a  fragment  of  the  Middle  Ages  has  survived,  but  no  strangers 
know  it,  since  hours  of  travel  divide  it  from  any  railway.  Ans- 
bach  is  the  nearest  point  in  the  great  system  of  modern  traffic;  to 
get  there  you  must  use  a  stage-coach.  And  that  is  as  true  to-day  as 
it  was  in  the  days  when  Gottfried  Nothafft,  the  weaver,  lived  there. 

The  town  walls  are  overgrown  with  moss  and  ivy;  the  old  draw- 
bridges still  cross  the  moats  and  take  you  through  the  round,  ruined 
gates  into  the  streets.  The  houses  have  bay-windows  and  far- 
projecting  overhangs,  and  their  interlacing  beams  look  like  the 
criss-cross  of  muscles  on  an  anatomical  chart. 

Concerning  the  poet  who  was  once  born  here  and  who  sang  the 
song  of  Parsifal,  all  living  memory  has  faded.  Perhaps  the  foun- 
tains whisper  of  him  by  night;  perhaps  sometimes  when  the  moon 
is  up,  his  shadow  hovers  about  the  church  or  the  town-hall.  The 
men  and  women  know  nothing  of  him  any  more. 

The  little  house  of  the  weaver,  withdrawn  by  a  short  distance 
from  the  street,  stood  not  far  from  the  inn  at  the  sign  of  the  Ox. 
Three  worn  steps  took  you  to  its  door,  and  six  windows  looked  out 
upon  the  quiet  square.  It  is  strange  to  reflect  that  the  spirit  of 

I 


2  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

modern  industrialism  hewed  its  destructive  path  even  to  this  forgot- 
ten nook  of  the  world. 

In  1849,  at  the  time  of  Gottfried  Nothafft's  marriage — his  wife, 
Marian,  was  one  of  the  two  Hollriegel  sisters  of  Nuremberg — he 
had  still  been  able  to  earn  a  tolerable  living.  So  the  couple 
desired  a  child,  but  desired  it  for  years  in  vain.  Often,  at  the 
end  of  the  day's  work,  when  Gottfried  sat  on  the  bench  in  front 
of  his  house  and  smoked  his  pipe,  he  would  say:  "How  good  it 
would  be  if  we  had  a  son."  Marian  would  fall  silent  and  lower 
her  eyes. 

As  time  passed,  he  stopped  saying  that,  because  he  would  not 
put  the  woman  to  shame.  But  his  expression  betrayed  his  desire 
all  the  more  clearly. 


A  day  came  on  which  his  trade  seemed  to  come  to  a  halt.  The 
weavers  in  all  the  land  complained  that  they  could  not  keep  their 
old  pace.  It  was  as  though  a  creeping  paralysis  had  come  upon 
them.  The  market  prices  suddenly  dropped,  and  the  character  of 
the  goods  was  changed. 

This  took  place  toward  the  end  of  the  eighteen  hundred  and 
fifties,  when  the  new  power  looms  were  being  introduced  from 
America.  No  toil  profited  anything.  The  cheap  product  which 
the  machines  could  furnish  destroyed  the  sale  of  the  hand-made 
weaves. 

At  first  Gottfried  Nothafft  refused  to  be  cast  down.  Thus  the 
wheel  of  a  machine  will  run  on  for  a  space  after  the  power  has 
been  cut  off.  But  gradually  his  courage  failed.  His  hair  turned 
grey  in  a  single  winter,  and  at  the  age  of  forty-five  he  was  a 
broken  man. 

And  just  as  poverty  appeared  threatening  at  their  door,  and  the 
soul  of  Marian  began  to  be  stained  by  hatred,  the  longing  of  the 
couple  was  fulfilled,  and  the  wife  became  pregnant  in  the  tenth 
year  of  their  marriage. 

The  hatred  which  she  nourished  was  directed  against  the  power 
loom.  In  her  dreams  she  saw  the  machine  as  a  monster  with 
thighs  of  steel,  which  screamed  out  its  malignity  and  devoured  the 
hearts  of  men.  She  was  embittered  by  the  injustice  of  a  process 
which  gave  to  impudence  and  sloth  the  product  that  had  once  come 
thoughtfully  and  naturally  from  the  careful  hands  of  men. 

One  journeyman  after  another  had  to  be  discharged,  and  one 


A  MOTHER  SEEKS  HER  SON  3 

hand-loom  after  another  to  be  stored  in  the  attic.  On  many  days 
Marian  would  slip  up  the  stairs  and  crouch  for  hours  beside  the 
looms,  which  had  once  been  set  in  motion  by  a  determinable  and 
beneficent  exertion  and  were  like  corpses  now. 

Gottfried  wandered  across  country,  peddling  the  stock  of  goods 
he  had  on  hand.  Once  on  his  return  he  brought  with  him  a  piece 
of  machine-made  cloth  which  a  merchant  of  Nordlingen  had  given 
him.  "Look,  Marian,  see  what  sort  of  stuff  it  is,"  he  said,  and 
handed  it  to  her.  But  Marian  drew  her  hand  away,  and  shuddered 
as  though  she  had  seen  the  booty  of  a  murderer. 

After  the  birth  of  her  boy  she  lost  these  morbid  feelings;  Gott- 
fried on  the  other  hand  seemed  to  dwindle  from  month  to  month. 
Though  he  outlasted  the  years,  there  was  no  cheer  left  in  him  and 
he  got  no  comfort  even  from  his  growing  boy.  When  he  had  sold 
all  his  own  wares,  he  took  those  of  others,  and  dragged  himself 
wearily  in  summer  and  winter  from  village  to  village. 

In  spite  of  the  scarcity  that  prevailed  in  the  house,  Marian  was 
convinced  that  Gottfried  had  put  by  money,  and  certain  hints 
which  he  threw  out  confirmed  her  in  this  hope.  It  was  one  of  his 
peculiar  views  that  it  was  better  to  leave  his  wife  in  the  dark  re- 
garding the  true  state  of  their  fortunes.  As  their  circumstances 
grew  worse,  he  became  wholly  silent  on  this  point. 


On  the  square  of  the  grain  merchants  in  Nuremberg,  Jason 
Philip  Schimmelweis,  the  husband  of  Marian's  sister,  had  his  book- 
binder's shop. 

Schimmelweis  was  a  Westphalian.  Hatred  against  the  junkers 
and  the  priests  had  driven  him  to  this  Protestant  city  of  the  South, 
where  from  the  beginning  he  had  acquired  the  respect  of  people 
through  his  ready  wit  and  speech.  Theresa  Hollriegel  had  lodged 
in  the  house  in  which  he  opened  his  shop,  and  gained  her  living 
as  a  seamstress.  He  had  thought  that  she  had  some  money,  but  it 
had  proved  to  be  too  little  for  his  ambitious  notions.  When  he 
discovered  that,  he  treated  Theresa  as  though  she  had  cheated  him. 

He  held  his  trade  in  contempt,  and  was  ambitious  of  greater 
things.  He  felt  that  he  was  called  to  be  a  bookseller;  but  he  had 
no  capital  wherewith  to  realise  this  plan.  So  he  sat  morosely  in 
his  subterranean  shop,  pasted  and  folded  and  quarrelled  with  his 
lot,  and  in  his  hours  of  leisure  read  the  writings  of  socialists  and 
freethinkers. 


4  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

It  was  the  Autumn  in  which  the  war  against  France  was  raging. 
On  that  very  morning  had  come  the  news  of  the  battle  of  Sedan. 
All  the  church  bells  were  ringing. 

To  the  surprise  of  Jason  Philip,  Gottfried  Nothafft  stepped  into 
his  shop.  His  long,  patriarchal  beard  and  tall  stature  gave  some- 
thing venerable  to  his  appearance,  even  though  his  face  looked 
tired  and  his  eyes  were  dull. 

"God  bless  you,  brother,"  he  said  and  held  out  his  hand.  "The 
fatherland  has  better  luck  than  its  citizens." 

Schimmelweis,  who  did  not  like  the  visits  of  kinsmen,  returned 
the  salutation  with  careful  coolness.  His  features  did  not  brighten 
until  he  heard  that  his  brother-in-law  was  stopping  at  the  Red 
Cock  Inn.  He  asked  what  errand  had  brought  Gottfried  to  the 
city. 

"I  must  have  a  talk  with  you,"  Nothafft  replied. 

They  entered  a  room  behind  the  shop  and  sat  down.  Jason 
Philip's  eyes  harboured  even  now  a  definitely  negative  answer  to 
any  proposal  that  might  cost  him  money  or  trouble.  But  he  was 
to  be  agreeably  disappointed. 

"I  want  to  tell  you,  brother,"  Gottfried  Nothafft  said,  "that 
I  have  put  by  three  thousand  taler  during  the  nineteen  years  of  my 
married  life.  And  since  I  have  the  feeling  that  I  am  not  long  for 
this  world,  I  have  come  to  ask  you  to  take  charge  of  the  money 
for  Marian  and  the  boy.  It  has  been  troublesome  enough  not  to 
touch  it  in  these  evil  times  that  have  come.  Marian  knows  nothing 
of  it,  and  I  don't  want  her  to  know.  She  is  a  weak  woman,  and 
women  do  not  understand  money  nor  the  worth  and  dignity  it  has 
when  it  has  been  earned  so  bitterly  hard.  In  some  hour  of  dif- 
ficulty she  would  begin  to  use  it,  and  presently  it  would  be  gone. 
But  I  want  to  ease  Daniel's  entry  into  life,  when  his  years  of 
training  and  apprenticeship  are  over.  He  is  twelve  now.  In  an- 
other twelve  years  he  will  be,  God  willing,  a  man.  You  can  help 
Marian  with  the  interest,  and  all  I  ask  of  you  is  to  be  silent  and  to 
act  a  father's  part  toward  the  boy  when  I  shall  be  no  more." 

Jason  Philip  Schimmelweis  arose.  He  was  moved  and  wrung 
Gottfried  Nothafft's  hand.  "You  may  rely  upon  me,"  he  said,  "as 
you  would  on  the  Bank  of  England." 

"I  thought  that  would  be  your  answer,  brother,  and  that  is  why 
I  came." 

He  put  down  on  the  table  three  thousand  taler  in  bank  notes 
of  the  realm,  and  Jason  Philip  wrote  out  a  receipt.  Then  he 
urged  him  to  stay  that  night  at  his  house.  But  Gottfried  Nothafft 


A  MOTHER  SEEKS  HER  SON  5 

said  that  he  must  return  home  to  his  wife  and  child,  and  that  a 
single  night  in  the  noisy  city  had  been  enough  for  him. 

When  they  returned  to  the  shop,  they  found  Theresa  sitting  there. 
In  her  lap  she  held  Philippina,  her  first-born,  who  was  three  years 
old.  The  child  had  a  large  head  and  homely  features.  Gottfried 
hardly  stopped  to  answer  his  sister-in-law's  questions.  Later  Theresa 
asked  her  husband  what  Gottfried's  business  had  been.  Jason 
Philip  answered  brusquely:  "Nothing  a  woman  would  understand." 

Three  days  later  Gottfried  sent  back  the  receipt.  On  the  back 
of  it  he  had  written:  "The  paper  is  of  no  use;  it  might  even  betray 
my  secret.  I  have  your  word  and  your  hand.  That  is  enough. 
With  thanks  for  your  friendship  and  your  services,  I  am  your 
faithful  kinsman,  Gottfried  NothafTt." 


Before  peace  had  been  made  with  France,  Gottfried  lay  down  to 
die.  He  was  buried  in  the  little  churchyard  by  the  wall,  and  a 
cross  was  set  upon  his  grave. 

Jason  Philip  and  Theresa  had  come  to  the  funeral,  and  stayed 
for  three  days.  An  examination  of  her  inheritance  showed,  to 
Marian's  consternation,  that  there  were  not  twenty  taler  in  the 
house,  and  what  she  saw  ahead  of  her  was  a  life  of  wretchedness 
and  want.  Jason  Philip's  counsel  and  his  plan  were  a  genuine 
consolation  to  her,  and  his  declaration  that  he  would  stand  by  her 
to  the  best  of  his  ability  eased  her  heart. 

It  was  determined  that  she  was  to  open  a  little  shop,  and  Jason 
advanced  her  one  hundred  taler.  All  the  while  he  had  the  air  of 
a  made  man.  He  held  his  head  high,  and  his  fat  little  cheeks 
glowed  with  health.  He  was  fond  of  drumming  with  his  fingers 
on  the  window  pane  and  of  whistling.  The  tune  he  whistled 
was  the  Marseillaise,  but  that  tune  was  not  known  in  Eschenbach. 

Daniel  observed  carefully  his  uncle's  lips,  and  whistled  the  tune 
after  him.  Jason  Philip  laughed  so  that  his  little  belly  quivered. 
Then  he  remembered  that  it  was  a  house  of  mourning,  and  said: 
"What  a  boy!" 

But  really  he  did  not  like  the  boy.  "Our  excellent  Gottfried 
does  not  seem  to  have  trained  him  carefully,"  he  remarked  once, 
when  Daniel  showed  some  childish  recalcitrance.  "The  boy  needs 
a  strong  hand." 

Daniel  heard  these  words,  and  looked  scornfully  into  his  uncle's 
face. 


6  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

Sunday  afternoon,  when  the  coffee  had  been  served,  the  Schim- 
melweis  couple  was  ready  to  leave.  But  Daniel  was  not  to  be 
found.  The  wife  of  the  inn-keeper  called  out  across  the  road 
that  she  had  seen  him  follow  the  organist  to  church.  Marian  ran 
to  the  church  to  fetch  him.  After  a  while  she  returned,  and  said 
to  Jason  Philip,  who  was  waiting:  "He's  crouching  in  the  organ 
loft,  and  I  can't  get  him  to  move." 

"Can't  get  him  to  move?"  Jason  Philip  started  up,  and  his  little 
red  cheeks  gleamed  with  rage.  "What  does  that  mean?  How 
can  you  tolerate  that?"  And  he  himself  proceeded  to  the  church 
to  get  the  disobedient  child. 

As  he  was  mounting  the  organ-loft  he  met  the  organist,  who 
laughed  and  said:  "I  suppose  you're  looking  for  Daniel?  He's 
still  staring  at  the  organ,  as  though  my  bit  of  playing  had  be- 
witched him." 

"I'll  drive  the  witch-craft  out  of  him,"  Jason  Philip  snarled. 

Daniel  was  crouching  on  the  floor  behind  the  organ,  and  did  not 
stir  at  his  uncle's  call.  He  was  so  absorbed  that  the  expression  of 
his  eyes  made  his  uncle  wonder  whether  the  boy  was  really  sane. 
He  grasped  Daniel's  shoulder,  and  spoke  in  a  tone  of  violent  com- 
mand: "Come  home  with  me  this  minute!" 

Daniel  looked  up,  awoke  from  his  dream,  and  became  aware  of 
the  indignant  hiss  of  that  alien  voice.  He  tore  himself  away,  and 
declared  insolently  that  he  would  stay  where  he  was.  That  en- 
raged Jason  Philip  utterly,  and  he  tried  again  to  lay  hands  on  the 
boy  in  order  to  drag  him  down  by  force.  Daniel  leapt  back,  and 
cried  with  a  quivering  voice:  "Don't  touch  me!" 

Perhaps  it  was  the  silence  of  the  nave  that  had  an  admonishing 
and  terrifying  effect  on  Jason  Philip.  Perhaps  the  extraordinary 
malignity  and  passion  in  the  little  fellow's  face  caused  him  to 
desist.  At  all  events  he  turned  around  and  went  without  another 
word. 

"The  stage-coach  is  waiting.  We'll  be  late!"  his  wife  called 
out  to  him. 

He  turned  a  sinister  face  to  Marian.  "You're  bringing  up  a 
fine  product,  I  must  say.  You'll  have  your  own  troubles  with 
him." 

Marian's  eyes  fell.  She  was  not  unprepared  for  the  reproach. 
She  was  herself  frightened  at  the  boy's  saxige  obduracy,  his  self- 
centred  insistence  on  his  imaginings,  his  hardness  and  impatience 
and  contempt  of  all  restraint.  It  seemed  to  her  as  though  fate  had 


A  MOTHER  SEEKS  HER  SON  7 

inspired  the  soul  of  her  child  with  something  of  the  foolish  and 
torturing  hatred  which  she  had  nursed  during  her  pregnancy. 


Jason  Philip  Schimmelweis  left  the  dark  basement  on  the  square, 
rented  a  shop  near  the  bridge  by  the  museum,  and  set  up  as  a 
book-seller.  Thus  his  old  ambition  was  realised  at  last. 

He  hired  a  shop-assistant,  and  Theresa  sat  all  day  at  the  till  and 
learned  to  keep  books. 

When  she  asked  her  husband  what  was  the  source  of  his  capital, 
he  answered  that  a  friend  who  had  great  confidence  in  his  ability 
had  advanced  him  the  money  at  a  low  rate  of  interest.  He  added 
that  he  had  been  pledged  not  to  divulge  the  name  of  his  friend. 

Theresa  did  not  believe  him.  Her  mind  was  full  of  dark  fore- 
bodings. She  brooded  incessantly  and  grew  to  be  watchful  and 
suspicious.  In  secret  she  tried  to  ferret  out  the  identity  of  this 
nameless  friend,  but  came  upon  no  trace.  Now  and  then  she 
tried  to  cross-question  Jason  Philip.  On  such  occasions  he  would 
snarl  at  her  malignantly.  There  was  no  talk  of  the  return  of  the 
money  or  of  the  payment  of  interest  on  it,  nor  did  the  books  show 
an  entry  of  any  sort.  To  rid  herself  of  the  anxieties  that  accom- 
panied her  through  the  years,  it  would  have  been  necessary  for 
Theresa  to  believe  in  helpful  fairies.  And  she  did  not  believe  in 
them. 

Nature  had  given  her  neither  gaiety  nor  gentleness;  under  the 
pressure  of  this  insoluble  mystery  she  became  ill-tempered  as  a 
wife  and  moody  :.s  a  mother. 

When  there  were  no  customers  in  the  shop  she  would  pick  up 
books  quite  at  random  and  read  in  them.  Sometimes  it  was  a  novel 
dealing  with  crime,  sometimes  a  garrulous  tract  dealing  with  secret 
vices.  Such  things  were  needed  to  attract  a  public  that  regarded 
the  buying  cf  books  as  a  sinful  waste.  Without  special  pleasure, 
and  with  a  morose  sort  of  thirst  for  information,  she  read  reve- 
lations of  court  life  and  the  printed  betrayals  of  all  kinds  of  spies, 
adventurers,  and  rogues.  Quite  unconsciously  she  came  to  judge 
the  world  to  which  she  had  no  real  access  according  to  these  books 
which  offered  her  us  truth  the  issues  of  sick  and  pestilential  minds. 

But  as  the  years  went  on,  and  prosperity  raised  Jason  Philip 
definitely  into  the  merchant  class,  he  abandoned  the  shadier  side 
of  his  business.  He  was  a  man  who  knew  his  age  and  who  un- 


8  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

furled  his  sails  when  he  was  sure  of  a  favourable  wind.  He 
entrusted  his  ship  more  and  more  to  the  ever  swelling  current  of 
the  political  parties  of  the  proletariat,  and  hoped  to  find  his  profit 
where,  in  a  half-hearted  way,  his  convictions  lay.  He  exhibited 
a  rebel's  front  to  the  middle-classes,  and  held  out  a  hand  of  unc- 
tuous fellowship  to  the  toiler.  He  knew  how  to  make  his  way! 
Many  an  insignificant  shop-keeper  had  been  known  to  exchange 
his  musty  rooms  for  a  villa  in  the  suburbs,  to  furnish  it  preten- 
tiously, and  to  send  his  sons  on  trips  abroad. 

In  these  days,  too,  the  old  imperial  city  awoke  from  its  romantic 
slumber.  Once  the  sublime  churches,  the  lovely  curves  of  the 
birdges,  and  the  quaint  gables  of  the  houses  had  formed  an  artistic 
whole.  Now  they  became  mere  remnants.  Castle  and  walls  and 
mighty  towers  were  ruins  of  an  age  of  dreams  now  fortunately 
past.  Iron  rails  were  laid  on  the  streets  and  rusty  chains  with 
strangely  shaped  lanterns  were  removed  from  the  opening  of 
narrow  streets.  Factories  and  smoke-stacks  surrounded  the  vener- 
able and  picturesque  city  as  an  iron  frame  might  surround  the  work 
of  some  old  master. 

"Modern  man  has  got  to  have  light  and  air,"  said  Jason  Philip 
Schimmelweis,  and  clinked  the  coins  in  his  trousers  pocket. 


Daniel  attended  the  gymnasium  at  Ansbach.  He  was  to  com- 
plete the  course  of  studies  that  would  entitle  him  to  the  reduction 
of  his  military  service  to  one  year  and  then  enter  business.  This 
had  been  agreed  upon  between  Jason  Philip  and  Marian. 

The  boy's  zeal  for  study  was  small.  His  teachers  shook  their 
heads.  Their  considerable  experience  of  the  world  had  never  yet 
offered  them  a  being  so  constituted.  He  listened  more  eagerly 
to  the  lowing  of  a  herd  of  cows  and  to  the  twittering  of  the 
sparrows  than  to  the  best  founded  principles  of  grammatical  science. 
Some  of  them  thought  him  dull,  others  malicious.  He  passed 
from  class  to  class  with  difficulty  and  solely  by  virtue  of  a  marvel- 
lous faculty  of  guessing.  At  especially  critical  moments  he  was 
saved  through  the  help  and  advocacy  of  the  music-master  Spindler. 

The  families  who  gave  the  poor  student  his  meals  complained 
of  his  bad  manners.  The  wife  of  Judge  Hahn  forbade  him  the 
house  on  account  of  his  boorish  answers.  "Beggars  must  not  be 
choosers,"  she  had  called  out  after  him. 

Spindler  was  a  man  who  asserted  quite  correctly  that  he  had  been 


A  MOTHER  SEEKS  HER  SON  9 

meant  for  better  things  than  wearing  himself  out  in  a  provincial 
town.  His  white  locks  framed  a  face  ennobled  by  the  melancholy 
that  speaks  of  lost  ideals  and  illusions. 

One  summer  morning  Spindler  had  risen  with  the  sun  and  gone 
for  a  long  walk  in  the  country.  When  he  reached  the  first  barn 
of  the  village  of  Dautenwinden  he  saw  a  company  of  strolling 
musicians,  who  had  played  dance  music  the  evening  before  and 
far  into  the  night,  and  who  were  now  shaking  from  their  hair  and 
garments  the  straw  and  chaff  amid  which  they  had  slept.  Above 
them,  under  the  open  gable  of  the  barn,  Daniel  Nothafft  was 
lying  in  the  straw.  With  an  absorbed  and  devout  expression  he 
war  seeking  to  elicit  a  melody  from  a  flute  which  one  of  the 
musicians  had  loaned  him. 

Spindler  stood  still  and  looked  up.  The  musicians  laughed,  but 
he  did  not  share  in  their  merriment.  A  long  while  passed  before 
the  unskilful  player  of  the  flute  became  aware  of  his  teacher. 
Then  he  climbed  down  and  tried  to  steal  away  with  a  shy  greeting. 
Spindler  stopped  him.  They  walked  on  together,  and  Daniel  con- 
fessed that  he  had  not  been  able  to  tear  himself  away  from  the 
musicians  since  the  preceding  afternoon.  The  lad  of  fourteen  was 
not  able  to  express  his  feeling;  but  it  seemed  to  him  as  though  a 
higher  power  had  forced  him  to  breathe  the  same  air  at  least  with 
those  who  made  music. 

From  that  day  on  and  for  three  years  Daniel  visited  Spindler 
twice  a  week,  and  was  most  thoroughly  grounded  in  counterpoint 
and  harmony.  The  hours  thus  spent  were  both  consecrated  and 
winged.  Spindler  found  a  peculiar  happiness  in  nourishing  a  pas- 
sion whose  development  struck  him  as  a  reward  for  his  many  years 
of  toneless  isolation.  And  though  the  desperateness  of  this  passion, 
though  the  rebelliousness  and  aimless  wildness  which  streamed  to 
him  not  only  from  the  character  of  his  pupil  but  also  from  that 
pupil's  first  attempts  at  composition,  gave  him  cause  for  anxiety, 
yet  he  hoped  always  to  soothe  the  boy  by  pointing  to  the  high  and 
serene  models  and  masters  of  his  art. 

And  so  the  time  came  in  which  Daniel  was  to  earn  his  own 
bread. 


Spindler      journeyed      to      Eschenbach      to      confer      with      Marian 
Nothafft. 

The   woman   did    not   understand    him.      She   felt    tempted    to   laugh. 


io  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

Music  had  meant  in  her  life  the  droning  of  o  hurdy-gurdy,  the 
singing  of  a  club  of  men,  the  marching  of  a  military  band.  Was 
her  boy  to  wander  from  door  to  door  and  fiddle  for  pennies? 
Spindler  seemed  a  mere  madman  to  her.  She  pressed  her  hands 
together,  and  looked  at  him  as  at  a  man  who  was  wasting  trivial 
wordr  on  a  tragic  disaster.  The  music-master  realised  that  his 
influence  was  as  narrow  as  his  world,  and  was  forced  to  leave  with- 
out accomplishing  anything. 

Marian  wrote  a  letter  to  Jason  Philip  Schimmelweis. 

One  could  almost  see  Jason  Philip  worrying  his  reddish  brown 
beard  with  his  nimble  fingers  and  the  scornful  twinkling  of  his 
eyes;  one  could  almost  hear  the  sharp,  northern  inflection  of  his 
speech  when  his  answer  to  Daniel  arrived:  "I  expected  nothing  else 
of  you  than  that  it  would  Le  your  dearest  wish  to  be  a  wastrel. 
My  dear  boy,  either  you  buckle  under  and  make  up  your  mind  to 
become  a  decent  member  of  society,  or  I  leave  you  both  to  your 
own  devices.  There  is  no  living  in  selling  herringr  and  pepper, 
and  so  you  will  kindly  imagine  for  yourself  the  fate  of  your 
mother,  especially  if  a  parasite  like  yourself  clings  to  her." 

Daniel  tore  up  the  letter  into  innumerable  bits  and  let  them 
flutter  out  into  the  wind.  His  mother  wept. 

Then  he  went  out  into  the  forest,  wandered  about  till  night- 
fall, and  slept  in  the  hollow  of  a  tree. 

VIII 

One  might  go  on  and  tell  the  tale  of  continued  rebellion,  of 
angry  words  on  both  sides,  of  pleas  and  complaints  and  fruitless 
arguments,  of  bitter  controversy  and  yet  bitterer  silence. 

Daniel  fled  and  returned  and  let  the  slothful  days  glide  by, 
stormed  about  in  the  vicinity,  and  lay  in  the  high  grass  beside  the 
pools  or  opened  his  window  at  night,  cursing  the  silence  and  envy- 
ing the  clouds  their  speed. 

His  mother  followed  him  when  he  went  to  his  little  room  and 
pressed  her  ear  to  the  door,  and  then  entered  and  saw  the  candle 
still  lit,  and  went  to  his  bed  and  was  frightened  at  his  gleaming 
eyes  which  grew  sombre  at  her  approach.  Full  of  the  memories 
of  her  early  cares  and  fears  for  him,  and  thinking  that  the  darkness 
and  the  sight  of  her  weakness  would  prevail  upon  him,  she  pleaded 
and  begged  once  more.  And  he  looked  up  at  her  and  something 
broke  in  his  soul,  and  he  promised  to  do  as  she  demanded. 

So  we  see  him  next  at  the  house  of  the  leather  merchant  Hamecher 


A  MOTHER  SEEKS  HER  SON  n 

in  Ansbach.  He  sits  on  a  bale  of  leather  in  the  long,  dismal 
passage  way  or  on  the  cellar  steps  or  in  the  store  room,  and  dreams 
and  dreams  and  dreams.  And  gradually  the  worthy  Hamecher's 
indulgent  surprise  turned  to  blank  astonishment  and  then  to  indig- 
nation, and  at  the  end  of  six  months  he  showed  the  useless  fellow 
the  door. 

Once  more  Jason  Philip  condescended  to  grant  his  favour,  and 
chose  a  new  scene  and  new  people  for  his  nephew,  if  only  to 
remove  him  from  Spindler's  baneful  influence.  At  the  mention 
of  the  city  of  Bayreuth  no  one  became  aware  of  Daniel's  fiery 
ecstasy,  for  they  had  never  heard  of  the  name  of  Richard  Wagner 
but  always  of  the  name  of  the  wine  merchant  Maier.  And  so  he 
came  to  Bayreuth,  the  Jerusalem  of  his  yearning,  and  forced  him- 
self to  an  appearance  of  industry  in  order  to  remain  in  that  spot 
where  sun  and  air  and  earth  and  the  very  beasts  and  stones  and 
refuse  breathe  that  music  of  which  Spindler  had  said  that  he  him- 
self had  a  profound  presentiment  of  its  nature  but  was  too  old  to 
giasp  and  love  it  wholly. 

Daniel  did  his  best  to  make  himself  useful.  But  in  spite  of 
himself  he  scrawled  music  notes  on  the  invoices,  roared  strange 
melodies  in  lonely  vaults,  and  let  the  contents  of  a  whole  keg  of 
wine  leak  out,  because  in  front  of  him,  on  the  floor,  lay  the  score 
of  the  English  Suites. 

At  a  rehearsal  he  slipt  into  the  Festival  Playhouse,  but  was  put 
out  by  a  zealous  watchman,  and  on  this  occasion  made  the  acquain- 
tance of  Andreas  Doberlein,  who  wr.s  a  professor  at  the  Nuremberg 
conservatory  and  a  tireless  apostle  of  the  redeemer.  Doberlein 
seemed  not  disinclined  to  understand  and  to  help,  and  expressed  a 
real  delight  at  the  deep,  original  enthusiasm  and  burning  devotion 
of  his  protege.  And  Daniel,  intoxicated  by  a  rather  vague  and  not 
at  all  binding  promise  of  a  scholarship  at  the  conservatory,  fled 
from  Bayreuth  by  night,  made  his  way  on  foot  back  to  Eschenbach, 
threw  himself  at  his  mother's  feet,  and  almost  writhed  there  before 
her  and  begged  and  implored  her,  and  in  words  almost  wild  sought 
to  prevail  on  her  to  attempt  to  change  the  mind  of  Jason  Philip. 
He  tried  to  explain  to  her  that  his  life  and  happiness,  his  very  blood 
and  heart  were  dedicated  to  this  one  thing.  But  she,  who  was  once 
kindly,  was  now  hard — hard  as  stone,  cold  as  ice.  She  understood 
nothing,  felt  nothing,  believed  nothing,  saw  only  the  frightfulness, 
as  she  called  it,  of  his  incurable  aberration. 

All  these  matters  might  have  been  related  at  length.  But  they 
are  as  inevitable  in  their  character  and  sequence  as  the  sparks  and 


12  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

smoke  that  follow  upon  fire.  They  are  quite  determinable;  they 
have  often  happened,  and  have  always  had  the  same  final  effect. 

What  clung  to  Marian's  soul  was  an  immemorial  prejudice 
against  a  gipsy's  life  and  a  stroller's  fate.  Her  ancestors  and  her 
husband's  had  always  earned  their  livelihood  in  the  honest  ways 
of  a  trade.  She  could  not  see  what  the  free  tuition  at  Doderlein's 
conservatory  would  avail  Daniel,  since  he  had  nothing  where- 
withal to  sustain  life.  He  told  her  that  Spindler  had  taught  him 
how  to  play  on  the  piano,  that  he  would  perfect  his  skill  and  so 
earn  his  sustenance.  She  shook  her  head.  Then  he  spoke  to  her 
of  the  greatness  of  art,  of  the  ecstasy  which  an  artist  could  com- 
municate and  the  immortality  he  might  win,  and  that  perhaps  it 
would  be  granted  him  to  create  something  unique  and  incomparable. 
But  these  words  she  thought  mad  andt  pretentious  delusions,  and 
smiled  contemptuously.  And  at  that  his  soul  turned  away  from  her, 
and  she  seemed  a  mother  to  him  no  more. 

When  Jason  Philip  Schimmelweis  learned  what  was  afoot,  he 
would  not  let  the  troublesome  journey  deter  him,  but  appeared  in 
Marian's  shop  like  an  avenging  angel.  Daniel  feared  him  no 
longer,  since  he  had  given  up  hoping  for  anything  from  him.  He 
laughed  to  himself  at  the  sight  of  the  stubby,  short-necked  man  in 
his  rage.  Gleams  of  mockery  and  of  cunning  still  played  over  the 
red  cheeks  of  Jason  Philip,  for  he  had  a  very  high  opinion  of 
himself,  and  did  not  think  the  windy  follies  of  a  boy  of  nineteen 
worthy  of  the  whole  weight  of  his  personality. 

While  he  talked  his  little  eyes  sparkled,  and  his  red,  little  tongue 
pushed  away  the  recalcitrant  hairs  of  his  moustache  from  his 
voluble  lips.  Daniel  stood  by  the  door,  leaning  against  the  post, 
his  arms  folded  across  his  chest,  and  regarded  now  his  mother,  who, 
dumb  and  suddenly  old,  sat  in  a  corner  of  the  sofa,  now  the  oil 
portrait  of  his  father  on  the  opposite  wall.  A  friend  of  Gottfried 
Nothafft's  youth,  a  painter  who  had  been  long  lost  and  forgotten 
like  his  other  works,  had  once  painted  it.  It  showed  a  man  of 
serious  bearing,  and  brought  to  mind  the  princely  guildsman  of 
the  Middle  Ages.  Seeing  the  picture  at  that  moment  enlightened 
Daniel  as  to  the  ancestral  strain  that  had  brought  him  to  this  mood 
and  to  this  hour. 

And  turning  now  once  more  to  Jason  Philip's  face,  he  thought  he 
perceived  in  it  the  restlessness  of  an  evil  conscience.  It  seemed  to 
him  that  this  man  was  not  acting  from  conviction  but  from  an 
antecedent  determination.  It  seemed  to  him  further  that  he  was 
faced,  not  merely  by  this  one  man  and  his  rage  and  its  accidental 


A  MOTHER  SEEKS  HER  SON  13 

causes,  but  by  a  whole  world  in  arms  that  was  pledged  to  enmity 
against  him.  He  had  no  inclination  now  to  await  the  end  of  Jason 
Philip's  oratorical  efforts,  and  left  the  room. 

Jason  Philip  grew  pale.  "Don't  let  us  deceive  ourselves, 
Marian,"  he  said.  "You  have  nursed  a  viper  on  your  bosom." 

Daniel  stood  by  the  Wolfram  fountain  in  the  square,  and  let  the 
purple  of  the  setting  sun  shine  upon  him.  Round  about  him  the 
stones  and  the  beams  of  the  ancient  houses  glowed,  and  the  maids 
who  came  with  pails  to  fetch  water  at  the  fountain  gazed  with 
astonishment  into  the  brimming  radiance  of  the  sky.  At  this  hour 
his  native  town  grew  very  dear  to  Daniel.  When  Jason  Philip 
entered  the  square,  at  the  corner  of  which  the  stage-coach  was 
waiting,  he  did  his  best  not  to  be  seen  by  Daniel  and  avoided  him 
in  a  wide  semi-circle.  But  Daniel  turned  around  and  fastened 
his  eyes  on  the  man,  who  strode  rapidly  and  gazed  stubbornly 
aside. 

This  thing  too  has  happened  before  and  will  happen  again.  Nor 
is  it  amazing  that  the  fugitive  should  turn  and  inspire  terror  in 
his  pursuer. 

IX 

Daniel  saw  that  he  could  not  stay  to  be  a  burden  to  his  mother 
with  her  small  resources.  She  was  poor  and  dependent  on  the 
judgment  of  a  tyrannical  kinsman.  Mastering  his  passionate  im- 
pulses, he  forced  himself  to  cool  reflection  and  made  a  plan.  He 
would  have  to  work  and  earn  so  much  money  that  after  a  year 
or  more  he  would  be  able  to  go  to  Andreas  Doderlein  and  remind 
him  of  his  magnanimous  offer.  So  he  studied  the  advertisements 
in  the  papers  and  wrote  letters  of  application.  A  printer  in  Mann- 
heim wanted  an  assistant  correspondent.  Since  he  agreed  to  take 
the  small  wage  offered,  he  was  summoned  to  that  city.  Marian 
gave  hrm  his  railway  fare. 

He  endured  the  torment  for  three  months.  Then  it  grew  un- 
bearable. For  seven  months  he  slaved  for  an  architect  in  Stuttgart, 
next  four  months  for  the  municipal  bath  in  Baden-Baden,  finally 
for  six  weeks  in  a  cigarette  factory  in  Kaiserslautern. 

He  lived  like  a  dog.  In  terror  of  having  to  spend  money,  he 
avoided  all  human  intercourse.  He  was  unspeakably  lonely. 
Hunger  and  self-denial  made  him  as  lean  as  a  rope.  His  cheeks 
grew  hollow,  his  limbs  trembled  in  their  sockets.  He  patched 
his  own  clothes,  and  to  save  his  shoes  hammered  curved  bits  of  iron 


H  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

to  the  heels  and  toes.  His  aim  sustained  him;  Andreas  Doderlein 
beckoned  in  the  distance. 

Every  night  he  counted  the  sum  he  had  saved  so  far.  And 
when  at  last,  after  sixteen  months  of  self-denial,  he  had  a  fortune 
of  two  hundred  marks,  he  thought  he  could  risk  the  fateful  step. 
As  he  reckoned  and  according  to  his  present  standard  of  life,  he. 
thought  that  this  money  would  last  him  five  months.  Within 
that  period  new  sources  might  open.  He  had  come  to  know  many 
people  and  had  experienced  many  circumstances,  but  in  reality  he 
had  known  no  one  and  experienced  nothing,  for  he  had  stood  in 
the  world  like  a  lantern  with  a  covered  light.  With  an  enormous 
expenditure  of  energy  he  had  restrained  his  mind  from  its  native 
activity.  He  had  throttled  it  for  the  sake  of  its  future.  Hence 
his  whole  soul  had  now  the  temperature  of  a  blast  furnace. 

On  his  trip  his  fare  was  the  accustomed  one  of  dry  bread  and 
cheese.  He  had  made  a  package  of  his  few  books  and  his  music, 
and  had  despatched  it  in  care  of  the  railway  station  in  Nuremberg. 
It  was  early  spring.  In  fair  weather  he  slept  in  the  open.  When 
it  rained  he  took  refuge  in  barns.  A  little  bundle  was  his  pillow 
and  his  ragged  top-coat  shielded  him  from  frost.  Not  rarely 
farmers  received  him  in  kindly  fashion  and  gave  him  a  meal. 
Now  and  then  a  tramping  apprentice  joined  him.  But  his  silence 
did  not  invite  companionship. 

Once  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Kitzingen  he  came  upon  a  high 
fenced  park.  Under  a  maple  tree  in  the  park  sat  a  young  girl  in 
a  white  dress  reading  a  book.  A  voice  called:  "Sylvia!"  There- 
upon the  girl  arose,  and  with  unforgettable  grace  of  movement 
walked  deeper  into  the  garden. 

And  Daniel  thought:  Sylvia!  A  sound  as  though  from  a  better 
world.  He  shuddered.  Was  it  to  be  his  lot  to  stand  without 
a  gate  of  life  that  gave  everything  to  the  eyes  and  nothing  to  the 
hands? 


He  sought  out  Andreas  Doderlein  at  once.  He  was  told  that  the 
professor  was  not  in  town.  Two  weeks  later  he  stood  once  more 
before  the  old  house.  He  was  told  that  the  professor  could  not  be 
seen  to-day.  He  was  discouraged.  But  out  of  loyalty  to  his 
cause  he  returned  at  the  end  of  three  days  and  was  received. 

He  entered  an  overheated  room.  The  professor  was  sitting  in 
an  arm  chair.  On  his  knees  was  his  little,  eight-year  old  daughter; 


A  MOTHER  SEEKS  HER  SON  15 

in  his  right  arm  he  held  a  large  doll.  The  white  tiles  of  the 
stove  were  adorned  with  pictured  scenes  from  the  Nibelungen 
legend;  table  and  chairs  were  littered  with  music  scores;  the 
windows  had  leaded  panes;  in  one  corner  there  was  a  mass  of  art- 
fully grouped  objects — peacocks'  feathers,  gay-coloured  silks, 
Chinese  fans.  This  combination  was  known  as  a  Makart  bouquet, 
and  represented  the  taste  of  the  period. 

Doderlein  put  the  little  girl  down  and  gave  her  her  doll.  Then 
he  drew  himself  up  to  the  fulness  of  his  gigantic  stature,  a  process 
that  gave  him  obvious  pleasure.  His  neck  was  so  fat  that  his  chin 
seemed  to  rest  on  a  gelatinous  mass. 

He  seemed  not  to  recall  Daniel.  Cues  had  to  be  given  him  to 
distinguish  this  among  his  crowded  memories.  He  snapped  his 
fingers.  It  was  a  sign  that  his  mind  had  reached  the  desired  place. 
"Ah,  yes,  yes,  yes!  To  be  sure,  to  be  sure,  my  dear  young  man! 
But  what  do  you  suppose?  Just  now  when  all  available  space  is 
as  crowded  as  a  street  strewn  with  crumbs  is  crowded  with  sparrows. 
We  might  take  the  matter  up  again  in  autumn.  Yes,  in  autumn 
something  might  be  done." 

A  pause,  during  which  the  great  man  gave  inarticulate  sounds  of 
profound  regret.  And  was  the  young  man,  after  all,  so  sure  of  a 
genuine  talent?  Had  he  considered  that  art  was  becoming  more 
and  more  an  idling  place  for  the  immature  and  the  shipwrecked? 
It  was  so  difficult  to  tell  the  sheep  from  the  goats.  And  finally, 
granting  talent,  how  was  the  young  man  equipped  in  the  matter 
of  moral  energy?  There,  indisputably,  the  core  of  the  problem 
was  to  be  sought.  Or  didn't  he,  perhaps,  think  so? 

As  through  a  fog  Daniel  observed  that  the  little  girl  had  ap- 
proached him  and  looked  him  over  with  a  curiously  cold  and 
testing  glance.  Almost  he  was  impelled  to  stretch  out  his  hand 
and  cover  the  eyes  of  the  child,  whose  manner  was  uncanny  to  him 
through  some  ghostly  presentiment. 

"I'm  truly  sorry  that  I  can't  give  you  a  more  encouraging  out- 
look." Andreas  Doderlein's  voice  was  oily,  and  showed  a  conscious 
delight  in  its  own  sound.  "But  as  I  said,  there's  nothing  to  be 
done  until  autumn.  Suppose  you  leave  me  your  address.  Put  it 
down  on  this  slip.  No?  Well,  quite  as  you  wish.  Good-bye, 
young  man,  good-bye." 

Doderlein  accompanied  him  to  the  door.  Then  he  returned 
to  his  daughter,  took  her  on  his  knee,  picked  up  the  doll,  and  said: 
"Human  beings,  my  dear  Dorothea,  are  a  wretched  set.  If  I  were 
to  compare  them  to  sparrows  on  the  road,  I  should  be  doing  the 


16  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

sparrows  but  little  honour.  Heavens  and  earth!  Wouldn't  even 
write  his  name  on  a  slip  of  paper.  Pelt  hurt!  Well,  well,  well. 
What  funny  creatures  men  are.  Wouldn't  leave  his  name.  Well, 
well." 

He  hummed  the  Walhalla  motif,  and  Dorothea,  bending  over 
her  doll,  coquettishly  kissed  the  waxen  face. 

Daniel,  standing  in  front  of  the  house,  bit  his  lips  like  a  man 
in  a  fever  who  does  not  want  his  teeth  to  rattle.  Why,  the  depth 
of  his  soul  asked  him,  why  did  you  sit  in  their  counting-houses  and 
waste  their  time?  Why  did  you  crucify  your  body  and  bind  my 
wings?  Why  were  you  deaf  to  me  and  desirous  of  gathering 
fruits  where  there  are  only  stones?  Why  did  you,  like  a  coward, 
flee  from  your  fate  to  their  offices  and  ware-houses  and  iron  safes 
and  all  their  doleful  business?  For  the  sake  of  this  hour?  Poor 
fool! 

And  he  answered:  "Never  again,  my  soul,  never  again." 

XI 

In  the  beginning  Marian  had  received  a  letter  from  Daniel 
every  now  and  then.  These  letters  became  rarer.  During  the 
second  year  he  wrote  only  once — a  few  lines  at  Christmas. 

At  the  time  when  he  was  leaving  his  last  place  of  employment 
he  wrote  her  on  a  postcard  that  he  was  changing  his  residence  again. 
But  he  did  not  tell  her  that  he  was  going  to  Nuremberg.  So  spring 
passed  and  summer.  Then  her  soul,  which  was  wavering  between 
fear  and  hope,  was  rudely  jolted  out  of  its  dim  state  by  a  letter 
from  Jason  Philip. 

He  wrote  that  Daniel  was  loafing  about  in  Nuremberg.  Quite  by 
accident  he  had  met  him  a  few  days  before  near  the  fair  booths 
on  Schiitt  Island.  His  appearance  was  indescribable.  He  had 
tried  to  question  him,  but  Daniel  had  disappeared.  What  had 
brought  him  to  the  city  he,  Jason  Philip,  could  not  see.  But  he 
was  willing  to  wager  that  at  the  bottom  of  it  was  some  shady  trick, 
for  the  fellow  had  not  looked  like  one  who  earns  an  honest  living. 
So  he  proposed  to  Marian  that  she  should  come  to  Nuremberg  and 
help  in  a  raid  on  the  vagabond,  in  order  to  prevent  the  unblemished 
name  he  bore  from  being  permanently  disgraced  before  it  was  too 
late.  As  a  contribution  to  her  travelling  expenses  he  enclosed  five 
marks  in  stamps. 

Marian  had  received  the  letter  at  noon.  She  had  at  once  locked 
up  her  house  and  shop.  At  two  o'clock  she  had  reached  the  sta- 


A  MOTHER  SEEKS  HER  SON  17 

tion  at  Ansbach;  at  four  she  arrived  in  Nuremberg.  Carrying 
her  hand-bag,  she  asked  her  way  to  Plobenhof  Street  at  every 
corner. 

Theresa  sat  at  the  cashier's  desk.  Her  brown  hair  on  her  square 
peasant's  skull  was  smoothly  combed.  Zwanziger,  the  freckled 
shop-assistant,  was  busy  unpacking  books.  Theresa  greeted  her  sister 
with  apparent  friendliness,  but  she  did  not  leave  her  place.  She 
stretched  out  her  hand  across  the  ink-stand,  and  observed  Marian's 
shabby  appearance — the  worn  shawl,  the  old-fashioned  little  cloth 
bonnet  with  its  black  velvet  ribbands  meeting  in  a  bow  under  the 
phin. 

"Go  upstairs  for  a  bit,"  she  said,  "and  let  the  children  entertain 
you.  Rieke  will  bring  up  your  bag." 

"Where  is  your  husband?"  asked  Marian. 

"At  an  electors'  meeting,"  Theresa  answered  morosely.  "They 
couldn't  meet  properly,  according  to  him,  if  he  isn't  there." 

At  that  moment  a  man  in  a  workingman's  blouse  entered  the 
shop  and  began  to  talk  to  Theresa  urgently  in  a  soft  but  excited 
voice.  "I  bought  the  set  of  books  and  they're  my  property,"  said 
the  man.  "Suppose  I  did  skip  a  payment.  That's  no  reason  to 
lose  my  property.  I  call  that  sharp  practice,  Frau  Schimmelweis, 
that's  what  I  call  it." 

"What  did  Herr  Wachsmuth  buy  of  us? "  Theresa  turned  to  the 
shop-assistant. 

"Schlosser's  'History  of  the  World/  "  was  the  prompt  answer. 

"Then  you'd  better  read  your  contract,"  Theresa  said  to  the  work- 
ing-man. "The  terms  are  all  fixed  there." 

"That's  sharp  practice,  Frau  Schimmelweis,  sharp  practice,"  the 
man  repeated,  as  though  this  phrase  summed  up  all  he  could  ex- 
press in  the  way  of  withering  condemnation.  "A  fellow  like  me 
wants  to  get  on  and  wants  to  learn  something.  All  right.  So  I 
think  I'll  buy  me  a  book  and  get  a  step  ahead  in  knowledge.  So 
where  do  I  go?  To  a  party  member,  to  Comrade  Schimmelweis, 
thinking  natural-like  I'm  safe  in  his  hands.  I  pay  sixty  marks — 
hard  earned  money — for  a  history  of  the  world,  and  manage  to 
squeeze  the  payments  out  o'  my  wages,  and  then,  all  of  a  sudden, 
when  half  the  price  is  paid,  I'm  to  have  my  property  taken  from  me 
without  so  much  as  a  by  your  leave  just  because  I'm  two  payments  in 
arrears." 

"Read  your  contract,"  said  Theresa.     "Every  point  is  stipulated." 

"No  wonder  people  get  rich,"  the  man  went  on.     His  voice  grew 

louder  and  louder,  and  he  glanced  angrily  at  Jason  Philip,  who  at 


i8  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

that  moment  rushed  into  the  shop  with  his  hat  crushed  and  his 
trousers  sprinkled  with  mud.  "No  wonder  that  people  can  buy 
houses  and  speculate  in  real  estate.  Yes,  Schimmelweis,  I  call  such 
things  sharp  practice,  and  I  don't  give  a  damn  for  your  contract. 
Everybody  knows  by  this  time  what  kind  of  business  is  done  here — 
more  like  a  man-trap — and  that  these  here  instalments  are  just  a 
scheme  to  squeeze  the  workingman  dry.  First  you  talk  to  him 
about  education,  and  then  you  suck  his  blood.  It's  hell!" 

"Pull  yourself  together,  Wachsmuth!"  Jason  Philip  cried  sternly. 

Wachsmuth  picked  up  his  cap,  and  slammed  the  shopdoor  behind 
him. 

Marian  Nothafft's  eyes  passed  mechanically  over  the  titles  of 
a  row  of  fiercely  red  pamphets  spread  out  on  a  table.  She  read: 
"The  Battle  that  Decides,"  "Modern  Slaveholders,"  "The  Rights 
of  the  Poor,"  "Christianity  and  Capitalism,"  "The  Crimes  of  the 
Bourgeoisie."  Although  these  catch-words  meant  nothing  to  her, 
she  felt  in  her  heart  once  more  her  old,  long  forgotten  hatred 
against  machines. 

XII 

"Fetch  me  a  sandwich,  Theresa,"  Jason  Philip  commanded,  "I'wi 
hungry  as  a  wolf." 

"Didn't  you  eat  anything  at  the  inn?"  Theresa  asked  suspiciously. 

"I  was  at  no  such  place."  Jason  Philip's  eyes  gleamed,  and  hfc 
shook  his  head  like  a  lion. 

So  Theresa  went  to  fetch  his  sandwich.  It  was  queer  to  observe 
how  much  distrust  and  contradiction  she  was  able  to  express  through 
the  sloth  of  her  movements.  But  her  daughter  Philippina  was  al- 
ready hurrying  down  the  stairs  with  the  sandwich. 

At  this  moment  Jason  Philip  became  aware  of  his  sister-in-law. 
"Ah,  there  you  are,  you  shrinking  flower,"  he  said  lightly,  and 
held  out  his  pudgy  hand.  "Theresa  will  put  you  up  in  the  little 
room  under  the  store-room.  You  have  a  pleasant  view  of  the  river 
there." 

Theresa  handed  him  the  bread.  He  sniffed  at  it,  and  frowned 
because  it  wasn't  thickly  enough  buttered.  But  he  had  not  the 
courage  to  complain.  He  bit  into  it,  and,  with  full  cheeks,  turned 
once  more  to  Marian. 

"Well,  that  son  of  yours  has  disappeared  again.  A  nice  situation. 
Shouldn't  wonder  if  he  ended  in  the  penitentiary.  The  best 
thing  would  be  to  ship  him  off  to  America;  but  it  isn't  clear  to  me 


A  MOTHER  SEEKS  HER  SON  19 

how  we're  to  get  hold  of  him  at  all.  It  was  really  premature  to 
ask  you  to  come." 

"If  only  I  knew  what  he's  living  on,"  Marian  whispered,  with 
repressed  anguish. 

Jason  Philip  indulged  with  broad  psychical  comfort  in  an 
anecdote:  "I  was  reading  the  other  day  how  a  giraffe  escaped  from 
the  Zoo.  You've  heard  of  giraffes.  They  are  long-necked  quad- 
rupeds, very  stupid  and  stubborn.  The  silly  beast  had  run  off  into 
the  woods,  and  the  people  didn't  know  how  to  capture  it.  Then 
the  keeper  hung  the  stable-lantern  over  his  chest  and  a  bundle  of 
hay  on  his  back,  and  at  nightfall  went  into  the  woods.  Scarcely 
had  the  giraffe  noticed  the  gleam  of  the  lantern  when  it  came  up 
in  its  curiosity.  At  once  the  man  swung  around.  It  smelled  the 
hay,  nibbled,  and  began  to  feed.  Slowly  the  man  went  on,  and 
the  beast  went  on  nibbling  and  feeding.  First  thing  you  know 
it  was  back  in  its  cage.  Now  don't  you  think  that  when  hunger 
begins  to  torment  him,  your  Daniel  could  be  tamed  with  a  bit 
of  hay  too?  It's  worth  your  thinking  about." 

Jason  Philip  laughed  merrily,  and  Zwanziger  grinned.  His  boss 
was  a  source  of  humour.  At  night,  when  he  sat  in  his  favourite 
tap-rooms  over  his  beer,  he  would  entertain  his  boon  companions 
with  the  witticisms  of  Schimmelweis,  and  always  won  their  applause. 

A  lean  old  man  with  kid  gloves  and  a  top-hat  entered  the  shop. 
It  was  growing  dark,  and  he  had  peered  carefully  about  before 
entering.  He  hurried  up  to  Jason  Philip,  and  said  in  a  cracked 
falsetto:  "How  about  the  new  publications?  Anything  very  fine?" 
He  rubbed  his  hands,  and  stared  stupidly  from  under  his  thin,  red- 
dish lids.  It  was  Count  Schlemm-Nottheim,  a  cousin  of  the  Baron 
von  Auffenberg,  the  leader  of  the  liberal  party. 

"I'm  entirely  at  your  service,  sir,"  said  Jason  Philip,  holding 
himself  as  rigidly  as  a  sergeant  who  is  being  addressed  by  a  captain. 

He  led  the  count  to  a  corner  of  the  shop,  and  opened  a  heavy 
oaken  chest.  This  chest  contained  the  pornographic  publications 
forbidden  by  the  state.  They  were  sold  quite  secretly  and  only 
to  very  reliable  persons. 

Jason  Philip  whispered,  and  the  old  count  turned  over  the  heap 
of  books  with  avid  fingers. 


XIII 

Marian  climbed  up  the  steep,  dark  stairs,  and  rang  the  upstairs 
bell.     She  had  to  tell  the  maid  who  she  was  and  even  mention  her 


20  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

name  to  the  children.  The  latter  laughed  at  her  stiff,  rural  cour- 
tesy. Philippina,  who  was  twelve,  acted  arrogantly  and  swung  her 
hips  when  she  walked.  All  three  had  their  mother's  square  head 
and  a  cheesy  complexion. 

The  maid  brought  up  the  bag.  Then  Theresa  came  too  and 
helped  her  sister  unpack.  With  her  acrid,  unfeeling  voice  she  asked 
many  questions,  but  without  waiting  for  an  answer  told  the  tale  of 
marriage  and  births  and  deaths  that  had  taken  place  in  the  city. 
She  avoided  Marian's  eyes,  because  she  was  silently  considering  how 
long  her  sister's  visit  would  last  and  to  what  expense  it  would  put 
her. 

She  did  not  mention  Daniel,  and  her  silence  condemned  him 
more  completely  than  her  husband's  acrimonious  speeches.  She 
held  firmly  an  almost  religious  doctrine  of  the  complete  obedience 
which  children  owe  their  parents,  and  doubted  Marian's  power  to 
punish  properly  a  breach  of  this  sacred  law. 

When  Marian  was  left  alone,  she  sat  down  by  the  window  of 
the  little  room,  and  gazed  sadly  down  at  the  river.  Without  any 
curl  of  waves  the  yellow  water  glided  by  and  washed  the  walls 
of  the  houses  on  the  other  bank.  She  had  a  view  of  the  Museum 
Bridge  and  another  bridge,  and  the  crowding  of  people  on  the 
bridges  disquieted  her. 

She  walked  through  the  streets,  and  stopped  at  the  head  of  the 
Museum  Bridge.  She  thought  that  every  human  being  who  lived 
in  the  town  must  pass  by  here  sooner  or  later.  Her  attentive 
glance  searched  all  faces,  and  where  one  escaped,  she  followed  the 
figure  as  it  melted  into  the  dark.  But  as  it  grew  later  the  people 
were  fewer  and  fewer. 

At  night  she  would  lie  awake,  and  listen  to  the  dull  echo  of  the 
feet  of  the  last  passerby.  Next  day  from  morning  to  twilight  she 
would  wander  up  and  down  the  streets.  What  she  saw  weighed  on 
her  heart.  The  city  people  seemed  to  her  like  dumb  animals, 
tormented  and  angry.  The  narrow  streets  stopped  her  breath;  the 
hubbub  deadened  her  senses. 

But  she  was  never  tired  of  seeking. 

On  the  fifth  day  she  did  not  come  home  until  ten  o'clock. 
Theresa,  who  had  gone  to  bed,  sent  her  a  plate  of  lentil  soup. 
While  she  was  avidly  eating  the  soup  she  heard  steps  in  the  hall  and 
a  knock  at  the  door.  Jason  Philip  entered.  "Come  along  at  once," 
was  all  he  said.  But  she  understood.  With  trembling  fingers  she 
threw  a  shawl  across  her  shoulders,  since  the  October  nights  were 
growing  cool,  and  followed  him  in  silence. 


A  MOTHER  SEEKS  HER  SON  21 

They  went  up  hill  to  Adler  Street,  turned  into  it  and  then  into  a 
narrow,  dark  little  alley  at  the  right.  A  lantern  hung  above  a 
door  and  on  a  green  glass  pane  were  inscribed  the  words:  "The 
Vale  of  Tears."  A  greenish  light  suffused  the  stone  stairs  that  led 
to  the  cellar,  the  kegs  and  the  desolate  room  filled  with  chairs  and 
benches.  A  sourish  smell  of  wine  arose  from  the  place. 

Beside  the  entrance  there  was  a  barred  window.  Beside  it  Jason 
Philip  stopped,  and  beckoned  Marian  to  join  him. 

At  the  long  tables  below  them  sat  a  queer  crowd.  They  were 
young  men,  but  such  as  one  never  finds  in  ordinary  houses  and  only 
very  rarely  in  the  streets.  Want  seemed  to  have  driven  them  to 
huddle  here,  and  the  night  to  have  lured  them  from  their  hiding 
places — shipwrecked  creatures  they  seemed  who  had  fled  to  a  cavern 
on  some  deserted  shore.  They  had  absurdly  gay  cravats  and  sad, 
pallid  faces,  and  the  greenish  light  made  them  look  altogether  like 
corpses.  It  was  long  since  a  barber  had  touched  their  hair  or  a 
tailor  their  garb. 

A  little  aside  from  these  sat  two  old  fellows,  habitual  topers, 
not  in  the  best  circumstances  themselves,  yet  rather  astonished  at 
this  dreary  Stygian  crew.  For  they  themselves  at  least  received 
their  weekly  wage  of  a  Saturday  night,  while  those  others  had 
obviously  for  years  not  worked  at  all. 

But  in  a  dusky  corner  sat  one  at  a  piano  and  struck  the  keys  with 
a  strange  might.  He  had  no  score  before  him,  but  played  from 
memory.  The  instrument  moaned;  the  strings  hummed  pitifully; 
the  pedals  creaked;  but  the  man  who  played  was  so  bewitched  by 
his  music  that  he  cared  little  for  the  inadequacy  of  its  communi- 
cation. Wild  as  the  tumult  of  the  playing  sounded,  the  shrill  and 
raging  chords,  the  wild  clamour  of  the  treble,  the  driven  triplets 
and  seething  tremolos  of  the  bass,  yet  the  deep  emotion  of  the 
player,  the  ecstasy  and  world-estranged  madness  in  which  he  was, 
lent  the  scene  a  melancholy  and  a  solemnity  which  would  have  had 
its  effect  even  without  the  greenish  cellar  and  the  cavernous  pallor 
of  the  listeners. 

Marian  had  at  once  recognised  the  pianist  as  Daniel.  She  had 
to  hold  fast  to  the  bars  of  the  window  and  lean  her  knees  against 
the  wainscoting.  It  was  not  for  nothing  that  Jason  Philip  was 
known  as  a  thorough  wag.  The  comparison  to  Daniel  in  the  lion's 
den  was  too  much  for  him.  He  whispered  the  words  to  Marian. 
But  since  the  window  was  open  and  the  music  had  first  risen  and 
then,  at  this  moment,  paused,  his  words  penetrated  to  the  people 
below,  and  several  heads  turned  toward  him.  Marian  was  thought- 


22  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

less.  She  believed  that  the  piece  had  ended.  Faintly  and  fear- 
fully she  cried:  "Daniel!" 

Daniel  leaped  up,  stared  at  her,  saw  Jason  Philip's  mocking  face, 
hastened  to  the  door,  the  steps,  and  was  beside  them. 

He  stood  in  the  doorway,  and  his  lips  began  to  form  words. 
The  unhappy  boy,  she  thought,  and  it  seemed  to  her  as  though 
power  would  be  given  her  to  press  back  to  his  heart  the  words  she 
trembled  to  hear. 

It  was  in  vain.  The  words  were  uttered.  He  did  not  wish  to 
see  his  mother  any  more;  he  was  content  to  live  alone  and  for  him- 
self and  to  be  free.  He  needed  no  one.  He  needed  only  to 
be  free. 

Jason  Philip  hurled  a  glance  of  contempt  at  the  blasphemous 
wretch,  and  drew  Marian  away  with  him.  To  the  very  corner  of 
the  alley  they  were  accompanied  by  the  excited  voices  of  the 
people  in  the  Vale  of  Tears. 

Next  morning  Marian  returned  to  Eschcnbach. 


FOES,  BROTHERS,  A  FRIEND  AND  A  MASK 


DANIEL  had  rented  a  room  of  the  brushmaker  Hadebusch  and 
his  wife,  who  lived  on  Jacob's  Square  behind  the  church. 

It  was  March,  and  a  sudden  cold  had  set  in;  and  Frau  Hadebusch 
had  a  superstitious  fear  of  coal,  which  she  characterised  as  Devil's 
dung.  At  the  back  of  the  yard  was  the  wood  pile,  and  logs  were 
brought  in  with  which  to  feed  the  oven  fires.  But  wood  was  dear, 
and  had  Daniel  fed  his  little  iron  stove  in  the  garret  with  such 
costly  food,  his  monthly  bill  would  have  reached  a  fabulous  height. 
He  paid  seven  marks  a  month  for  his  room  and  counted  every 
penny  so  as  not  to  shorten  the  period  of  his  liberty  by  any  needless 
expenditure. 

So  he  sat  freezing  over  his  books  and  scores  until  the  first  warmth 
of  spring  stole  in  through  the  windows.  The  books  he  borrowed 
from  the  library  at  the  King's  Gate,  and  paid  six  pfennigs  a 
volume.  Achim  von  Arnim  and  Jean  Paul  were  his  guides  in  those 
days:  the  one  adorned  the  world  of  the  senses  for  him,  the  other 
that  of  the  soul. 

On  the  police  department's  identification  blank  Daniel  had  called 
himself  a  musician.  Frau  Hadebusch  brought  the  paper  into  her 
living  room,  which,  like  all  the  rooms  of  the  house,  seemed  built 
for  dwarfs  and  reeked  of  limewater  and  lye.  It  was  at  the  day's 
end,  and  in  the  room  were  assembled  Herr  Francke  and  Herr 
Benjamin  Dorn,  who  lodged  on  the  second  floor,  and  Frau  Hade- 
busch's  son,  who  was  weak-minded  and  crouched  grinning  beside 
the  stove. 

Herr  Francke  was  a  town  traveller  for  a  cigar  house,  and  was 
regarded  as  a  good  deal  of  a  Don  Juan  by  the  female  servants  of 
the  neighbourhood.  Benjamin  Dorn  was  a  clerk  in  the  Prudentia 
Life  Insurance  Company,  belonged  to  a  Methodist  congregation,  and 
was  respected  by  all  the  respectable  on  account  of  his  Christian  walk 
and  conversation. 

These  gentlemen  examined  the  document  thoroughly  and  with 
frowns.  Herr  Francke  gave  it  as  his  opinion  that  a  musician  who 
never  made  music  could  scarcely  be  regarded  as  one. 

23 


24  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

"He's  probably  pawned  his  bass  violin  or  bugle  or  whatever  he 
was  taught,"  he  said  contemptuously ;  "perhaps  he  can  only  beat 
a  drum.  Well,  I  can  do  that  too  if  I  have  one." 

"Yes,  you've  got  to  have  a  drum  to  be  a  drummer,"  Benjamin 
Dorn  remarked.  "The  question,  however,  is  whether  such  a  call- 
ing is  in  harmony  with  the  principles  of  Christian  modesty."  He 
laid  his  finger  on  his  nose,  and  added:  "It  is  a  question  which,  with 
all  proper  humility,  all  proper  humility,  you  understand,  I  would 
answer  in  the  negative." 

"He  hasn't  any  relatives  and  no  acquaintances  at  all,"  Frau 
Hadesbusch  wailed,  and  her  voice  sounded  like  the  scraping  of 
carrots  on  a  grater;  "and  no  employment  and  no  prospects  and  no 
boots  or  clothes  but  what  he's  got  on.  In  all  my  life  I  haven't 
had  no  such  lodger." 

The  blank  fluttered  to  the  floor,  whence  the  weak-minded  Hade- 
tmsch  Jr.  picked  it  up,  rolled  it  in  the  shape  of  a  bag,  and  applied 
that  bag,  trumpet-like,  to  his  lips,  a  procedure  which  caused  the 
document  in  question  to  be  gradually  soaked  through  and  thus 
withdrawn  from  its  official  uses.  Frau  Hadebusch  was  too  little 
concerned  over  the  police  regulations  to  take  further  thought  of 
her  duties  as  the  keeper  of  a  lodging  house. 

Herr  Francke  drew  from  his  pocket  a  pack  of  greasy  cards  and 
began  to  shuffle  them.  Frau  Hadebusch  giggled  and  it  sounded  like 
a  witch  rustling  in  the  fire.  The  Methodist  conquered  his  pious 
scruples,  and  placed  his  pfennigs  on  the  table;  the  town-traveller 
turned  up  his  sleeves  as  though  he  were  about  to  wring  a  hen's 
neck. 

Before  very  long  there  arose  a  dissonant  controversy,  since  Herr 
Francke's  relations  with  the  goddess  of  fortune  were  strained  and 
violent.  The  old  brushmaker  poked  his  head  in  at  the  door  and 
cursed;  the  weak-minded  boy  blew  dreamily  on  his  paper  trumpet; 
and  the  company  that  had  been  so  peacefully  at  one  separated  in 
violence  and  rage. 


Daniel  wandered  up  to  the  castle,  along  the  walls,  over  the 
bridges  and  planks. 

It  was  his  youth  that  caused  him  so  to  love  the  night  that  he 
forgot  all  men  and  seemed  to  himself  to  be  alone  on  earth.  It  was 
his  youth  that  delivered  him  up  to  things  with  such  passion  that 


FOES,  BROTHERS,  A  FRIEND  AND  A  MASK       25 

he  was  able  to  weave  the  ghostly  flowers  of  melodies  about  all 
that  is  visible — melodies  that  were  so  delicate,  so  eloquent,  and  so 
winged  that  no  pen  could  ever  record  them.  They  vanished  and 
died  whenever  he  sought  to  capture  them. 

But  it  was  also  his  youth  that  fired  his  eyes  with  hatred  when 
he  saw  the  comfort  of  lit  windows,  and  filled  his  heart  with  bitter- 
ness against  the  satisfied,  the  indifferent,  the  strangers,  the  eternal 
strangers  who  had  no  consciousness  of  him. 

He  was  so  small  and  so  great:  small  in  the  eyes  of  the  world, 
great  in  his  own  estimation.  When  the  tones  burst  from  him  like 
sparks  from  an  anvil,  he  was  a  god.  When  he  stood  in  the  dark 
court  behind  the  City  Theatre  waiting  for  the  final  chorus  of 
"Fidelio"  to  penetrate  the  wall  and  reach  his  grateful  ears,  he  was 
an  outcast.  Fountains  of  music  rustled  all  about  him.  He  looked 
into  the  eyes  of  the  children  and  there  was  melody;  he  gazed  up  at 
the  stars  and  there  was  harmony.  He  finally  came  to  the  point 
where  there  was  no  limit.  His  day  was  a  waste  place,  his  brain 
a  parched  field  in  the  rain,  his  thoughts  were  birds  of  passage,  his 
dreams  a  super-life. 

He  lived  on  bread  and  fruit,  treating  himself  only  every  third 
day  to  a  warm  meal  in  the  inn  at  the  sign  of  the  White  Tower. 
There  he  would  sit  and  listen  at  times,  unobserved,  to  the  quite 
remarkable  conversation  of  some  young  fellows.  This  awakened 
in  him  a  longing  for  intercourse  with  congenial  companions.  But 
when  the  brethren  of  the  Vale  of  Tears  finally  took  him  into 
their  circle,  he  was  like  a  Robinson  Crusoe  or  a  Selkirk  who  had 
been  abducted  from  his  island. 


HI 

Benjamin  Dorn  was  a  compassionate  individual.  The  desire  to 
save  a  lost  soul  filled  him  with  the  courage  to  pay  Daniel  Nothafft 
a  visit.  He  hobbled  up  the  creaky  steps  with  his  club-foot,  and 
knocked  timidly  at  the  door. 

"Can  I  be  of  service  to  you,  Sir,  in  a  Christian  way?"  he  asked, 
after  he  had  blown  his  nose. 

Daniel  looked  at  him  in  amazement. 

"You  know,  I  could  help  you  in  an  unselfish,  Christian  way, 
to  get  a  position.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  work  to  be  done  down 
at  the  Prudentia.  If  I  were  to  recommend  you  to  Herr  Zittel 
it  certainly  would  not  be  in  vain.  Herr  Zittel  is  head  of  the 


26  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

clerical  department.  I  also  stand  in  with  Herr  Diruf,  and  he  is 
general  agent.  I  come  in  contact  nearly  every  day  with  Inspector 
Jordan,  and  Herr  Jordan  is  a  man  of  exceptional  culture.  His 
daughter  Gertrude  attended  my  Sunday-school  class.  She  has 
received  and  still  enjoys  divine  favour.  If  you  were  to  entrust 
your  case  to  me,  you  would  be  entering  upon  a  righteous,  whole- 
some career.  I  am  always  looking  out  for  some  one.  To  tell  the 
truth,  and  not  wishing  to  appear  immodest,  I  was  born  that  way." 

The  man  looked  like  a  patchwork  of  qualmishness,  tribulation, 
and  unctuous  piety,  and  his  coat  collar  was  badly  frayed. 

"That's  all  right,"  replied  Daniel;  "don't  you  see  that  I  am 
getting  along  quite  well?" 

The  pious  life-insurance  agent  sighed  and  brushed  a  drop  from 
the  tip  of  his  nose  with  the  back  of  his  hand.  "My  dear  Sir," 
said  he,  "take  to  heart  the  words  of  Solomon:  Pride  goeth  before 
a  fall,  but  the  humble  in  spirit  obtain  honour." 

"Yes,  I'll  take  that  to  heart,"  said  Daniel  drily,  and  bent  still 
lower  over  the  score  on  which  he  was  working. 

Benjamin  Dorn  sighed  again,  and  limped  out  of  the  room. 
With  his  thumbs  pointing  straight  to  high  heaven  above,  he  said  to 
Frau  Hadebusch:  "You  know,  Frau  Hadebusch,  I  simply  can't  help 
it.  I  must  lighten  my  heart  in  a  Christian  way.  What  do  you 
think?" 

"Good  heavens,  what's  he  doing?  What's  he  up  to  now?" 
sighed  the  old  lady,  as  she  shoved  her  broom  under  her  arm. 

"As  true  as  I  stand  here,  the  table  is  all  covered  with  papers, 
and  the  papers  are  all  covered  with  some  kind  of  mysterious 
signs." 

Alarmed  at  the  very  thought  of  having  a  lodger  up  in  the  attic 
who  was  practising  black  magic,  Frau  Hadebusch  sent  her  husband 
down  to  the  district  policeman.  This  enlightened  official  declared 
that  the  brush-maker  was  a  gossip.  Vexed  at  this  unanticipated 
description  of  himself,  the  brush-maker  went  straightway  to  the 
inn  at  the  sign  of  the  Horse  and  got  drunk,  so  drunk  that  Ben- 
jamin Dorn  had  to  take  him  home.  It  was  a  beautiful  moonlit 
night. 

IV 

Not  far  from  Hadebusch's  was  a  little  cafe  known  as  The  Para- 
dise. Everything  in  it  was  diminutive,  the  proprietor,  the  waitress, 
the  tables,  the  chairs  and  the  portions.  There  the  brethren  from 


FOES,  BROTHERS,  A  FRIEND  AND  A  MASK      27 

the  Vale  of  Tears  assembled  to  drag  the  gods  down  into  the  dust 
and  destroy  the  universe  in  general. 

Daniel  wended  his  way  thither.  He  knew  the  liliputian 
room  and  the  starved  faces.  He  was  personally  acquainted  with 
the  painter  who  never  painted,  the  writer  who  never  wrote,  the 
student  who  never  studied,  and  the  inventor  who  never  invented 
anything.  He  knew  all  about  the  sculptor  who  squandered  such 
talents  as  he  may  have  had  in  tinkering  with  plaster  casts,  the 
actor  who  had  been  on  a  leave  of  absence  for  years,  and  the  half 
dozen  mendicant  Philistines  who  came  here  day  after  day  to  have 
a  good  time  in  their  own  repelling  fashion.  He  knew  the  young 
Baron  von  Auffenberg  who  had  broken  with  his  family  for  reasons 
that  were  clear  to  no  one  but  himself.  He  knew  Herr  Carovius, 
who  invariably  played  the  role  of  the  observer,  and  who  sat  there 
in  a  sort  of  mysterious  fashion,  smiling  to  himself  a  smile  of  lan- 
guishing irony,  and  stroking  his  hand  over  his  long  hair,  which 
was  cut  straight  across  at  the  back  of  his  neck. 

He  knew,  ah,  he  knew  by  heart,  the  grease  spots  on  the  walls 
that  had  been  rubbed  in  by  the  heads  of  the  habitues,  the  indelible 
splotches  on  the  tables,  the  hartshorn  buttons  on  the  proprietor's 
vest,  and  the  smoke-coloured  curtains  draped  about  the  tiny  win- 
dows. The  loud,  boisterous  talking,  the  daily  repetition  of  the 
same  hackneyed  remarks,  the  anarchistic  swashbuckling  of  the 
painter  whom  his  comrades  had  dubbed  Kropotkin — all  of  these 
were  familiar  stories  to  him.  He  knew  the  philosophic  cynicism 
of  the  student  who  felt  that  he  was  the  Socrates  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  who  looked  back  on  twenty-five  wasted  semesters  as 
on  so  many  battles  fought  and  won. 

The  most  interesting  personage  was  Herr  Carovius.  He  was  a 
well-read  man.  That  he  knew  a  great  deal  about  music  was  plain 
from  many  of  his  chance  remarks.  He  was  a  brother-in-law  of 
Andreas  Doderlein,  though  he  seemed  to  take  anything  but  pride 
in  the  relationship.  If  any  one  mentioned  Doderlein's  name  in  his 
presence,  he  screwed  up  his  face,  and  began  to  shuffle  about  uneasily 
on  his  chair.  He  was  an  unfathomable,  impenetrable  personality. 
Even  if  his  years*— he  was  forty-five — had  not  won  for  him  a 
measure  of  esteem,  the  malicious  and  mordant  scorn  he  heaped  on 
his  fellow-men  would  have  done  so.  People  said  he  had  a  good 
deal  of  money.  If  this  was  brought  to  his  attention,  he  employed 
the  most  ghastly  oaths  in  asserting  his  poverty.  But  since  he  had 
neither  calling  nor  profession  and  spent  his  days  in  unqualified 
idleness,  it  was  apparent  that  his  assertions  on  this  point  were 


28  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

wholly  unfounded,  and  this  despite  the  virility  of  his  unconven- 
tional language. 

"Say,  tell  me,  who  is  that  lanky  quack  there?"  asked  Herr 
Carovius,  pointing  to  Daniel  and  looking  at  Schwalbe  the  sculptor. 
He  had  known  Daniel  for  a  long  while,  but  every  now  and  then 
it  gave  him  a  peculiar  kind  of  pleasure  to  play  the  role  of  the 
newcomer. 

The  sculptor  looked  at  him  indignantly. 

"That  is  a  man  who  still  has  faith  in  himself,"  he  remarked 
rather  morosely.  "He  is  a  man  who  has  bathed  in  the  dragon 
blood  of  illusions,  and  has  become  as  invulnerable  as  Young  Sieg- 
fried. He  is  convinced  that  the  people  who  sleep  in  the  houses 
around  this  part  of  town  dream  of  his  future  greatness,  and  have 
already  placed  an  order  with  the  green-grocer  for  his  laurel  wreath. 
He  has  not  the  faintest  idea  that  the  only  thing  that  is  sacred  to 
them  is  their  midday  meal,  that  they  are  ready  to  drink  their  beer 
at  the  first  stroke  of  the  gong,  and  to  yawn  when  the  light  appears 
Tin  Mount  Sinai.  He  is  completely  taken  up  with  himself;  he  is 
sufficient  unto  himself;  and  he  gathers  honey.  The  bee  will  have 
its  honey,  and  if  it  is  unable  to  get  it  from  the  flowers,  it  buzzes 
about  the  dung  heap.  As  is  evidently  the  case  here.  Prosit 
NothafFt,"  he  said  in  conclusion,  and  lifted  his  glass  to  Daniel. 

Herr  Carovius  smiled  in  his  usual  languishing  fashion.  "Not- 
hafTt,"  he  bleated,  "Nothafft,  Nothafft,  that  is  a  fine  name,  but 
not  exactly  one  that  is  predestined  to  a  niche  in  Walhalla.  It 
strikes  me  as  being  rather  more  appropriate  for  the  sign  of  a  tailor. 
Good  Lord!  The  bones  the  young  people  gnaw  at  to-day  were 
covered  with  meat  in  my  time." 

And  then,  clasping  his  glasses  a  bit  firmer  onto  his  nose,  he 
riveted  his  blinking,  squinting  eyes  on  the  door.  Eberhard  von 
AufFenberg,  elegant,  slender,  and  disgruntled,  entered  to  find  life 
where  others  were  throwing  it  away. 

It  was  far  into  the  night  when  the  brethren  went  home.  As  they 
passed  along  through  the  streets  they  bellowed  their  nocturnal 
serenades  at  the  windows  of  the  otherwise  peaceful  houses. 

As  the  hilarious  laughter  and  vocal  rowdyism  reached  Daniel's 
ear,  he  detected  from  out  of  the  hubbub  a  gentle  voice  in  E-flat 
minor,  accompanied  by  the  inexorable  eighth-notes  sung  with 
impressive  vigour.  Then  the  voice  died  away  in  a  solemn  E-flat 
major  chord,  and  everything  was  as  if  sunk  in  the  bottom  of 
the  sea. 


FOES,  BROTHERS,  A  FRIEND  AND  A  MASK       29 


Toward  the  end  of  the  summer,  Philippina,  Jason  Philip's 
daughter,  shot  out  the  eye  of  her  seven-year-old  brother  with  a 
so-called  bean-shooter. 

The  children  were  playing  in  the  yard.  Willibald,  the  older 
boy,  wanted  the  shooter.  Philippina,  who  had  not  the  slightest 
sense  of  humour,  snatched  it  from  his  hands,  placed  the  stone  on 
the  elastic  band  and  let  it  fly  with  all  her  might.  Little  Marcus 
ran  in  front  of  it.  It  was  all  over  in  a  jiffy.  A  heart-rending 
scream  caused  the  frightened  mother  to  leave  the  shop  and  run 
out  into  the  yard.  She  found  the  child  lying  on  the  ground  con- 
vulsed with  pain.  While  Theresa  carried  the  boy  into  the  house, 
Jason  Philip  ran  for  the  doctor.  But  it  was  too  late;  the  eye 
was  lost. 

Philippina  hid.  After  considerable  search  her  father  found  her 
under  rhe  cellar  steps.  He  beat  her  so  mercilessly  that  the  neigh- 
bours had  to  oome  up  and  take  him  away. 

Little  Marcus  was  Theresa's  favourite  child.  She  could  not 
get  over  the  accident.  The  obsession  that  had  slumbered  in  her 
soul  for  years  now  became  more  persistent  than  ever:  she  began 
to  brood  over  guilt  in  general  and  this  case  in  particular. 

At  times  she  would  get  up  in  the  night,  light  a  candle,  and 
walk  about  the  house  in  her  stocking  feet.  She  would  look  behind 
the  stove  and  under  the  table,  and  then  crouch  down  with  her  ear 
against  the  maid's  door.  She  would  examine  the  mouse-trap  and 
if  a  mouse  had  been  caught  in  it,  she  could  not,  try  as  she  might, 
completely  detach  her  own  unrest  from  the  mental  disturbance  of 
the  little  beast. 

One  day  Jason  Philip  was  stopped  on  the  street  by  a  well- 
known  cabinet-maker  and  asked  whether  he  had  any  old  furniture 
for  sale.  Jason  Philip  replied  that  he  was  not  at  all  familiar  with 
the  contents  of  the  attic  and  sent  him  to  Theresa.  Theresa  recalled 
that  there  was  an  old  desk  up  in  the  attic  that  had  been  standing 
there  for  years.  She  suggested  that  they  might  be  willing  to 
dispose  of  this  for  a  few  taler,  and  accompanied  the  man  to  the 
room  where  the  worn-out  furniture  was  stored. 

She  opened  the  little  wooden  door.  The  cabinet-maker  caught 
sight  at  once  of  the  desk.  It  had  only  three  legs  and  was  just 
about  ready  to  fall  to  pieces.  "I  can't  make  you  an  offer  for 
that."  said  the  cabinet-maker,  and  began  to  rap  on  it  here  and 


30  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

there,  somewhat  as  a  physician  might  sound  a  corpse.  "The  most 
I  can  offer  you  is  twelve  groschen." 

They  haggled  for  a  while,  and  finally  agreed  on  sixteen.  The 
man  left  at  once,  having  promised  to  send  one  of  his  men  up  in 
the  afternoon  to  get  the  desk.  Theresa  was  already  standing  on 
the  steps,  when  it  occurred  to  her  that  it  might  be  well  to  go 
through  the  drawers  before  letting  the  thing  get  out  of  the  house: 
there  might  be  some  old  documents  in  them.  She  went  back  up  in 
the  attic. 

In  the  dust  of  one  of  the  drawers  she  found,  sure  enough,  a 
bundle  of  papers,  and  among  them  the  receipt  which  Gottfried 
Nothafft  had  sent  back  to  Jason  Philip  ten  years  before.  She  read 
in  the  indistinct  light  the  confidential  words  of  the  deceased.  She 
saw  that  Jason  Philip  had  received  three  thousand  taler. 

After  she  had  read  this,  she  crumpled  up  the  paper.  Then  she 
put  it  into  her  apron  pocket  and  screamed  out:  "Be  gone,  Gott- 
fried, be  gone!" 

She  went  down  stairs  into  the  kitchen.  There  she  took  her 
place  by  the  table  and  stirred  a  mixture  of  flour  and  eggs,  as  com- 
pletely absent-minded  as  it  is  possible  for  one  to  become  who 
spends  her  time  in  that  part  of  the  house.  Rieke,  the  maid,  became 
so  alarmed  at  her  behaviour  that  she  made  the  sign  of  the  cross. 


When  the  midday  meal  was  over,  the  children  left  the  table 
and  prepared  to  go  to  school.  Jason  Philip  lighted  a  cigar,  and 
took  the  newspaper  from  his  pocket. 

"Did  you  find  anything  for  the  second-hand  furniture  man?" 
he  asked,  as  he  puffed  away. 

"I  found  something  for  him  and  something  for  myself,"  she 
said. 

"What  do  you  mean?      You  found  something  for  yourself?" 

"What  do  I  mean?  I  mean  just  what  I  said.  I  have  always 
known  that  there  was  something  crooked  about  that  money." 

"What  money  are  you  talking  about?  Listen,  don't  speak  to 
me  in  riddles!  When  you  have  anything  to  say  to  me,  say  it. 
Do  you  understand?" 

"I  mean  Gottfried  Nothafft's  money,  Jason  Philip,"  said 
Theresa,  almost  in  a  whisper. 

Jason  Philip  bent  over  the  table.  "Then  you  have  at  last 
found  the  old  receipt,  have  you?"  he  asked  with  wide-opened  eyes. 


FOES,  BROTHERS,  A  FRIEND  AND  A  MASK       31 

"Ahem!  You  have  found  the  receipt  that  I've  been  looking  for 
for  years  ...  ? " 

Theresa  nodded.  She  took  out  a  hairpin,  and  stuck  it  in  a 
crust  of  bread.  Jason  Philip  got  up,  clasped  his  hands  behind  his 
back,  and  began  to  walk  back  and  forth.  Just  then  Rieke  came  in 
and  began  to  clear  off  the  table.  She  went  about  her  business  in 
a  slow  but  noisy  fashion.  She  made  things  rattle,  even  if  she 
could  not  make  them  hum.  When  she  was  through,  Jason  Philip, 
his  hands  pressed  to  his  hips,  his  elbows  protruding,  planted  him- 
self before  Theresa. 

"I  suppose  you  think  I  am  going  to  let  you  browbeat  me,"  he 
began.  "Well,  my  dear  woman,  you're  mistaken.  Listen!  Are 
you  angry  at  me  because  I  have  created  for  you  and  your  children 
a  dignified  existence?  Do  you  take  it  amiss  of  me  for  having 
kept  your  sister  from  going  to  the  poor-house?  You  act  as  though 
I  had  won  that  much  money  at  the  county  fair,  or  had  squandered 
an  equal  amount  at  the  same  place.  The  truth  is,  Gottfried  Not- 
hafft  entrusted  me  with  three  thousand  taler.  That's  what  he 
did;  that's  the  truth.  It  was  his  intention  to  keep  the  whole  affair 
from  the  chatter  of  women.  And  he  willed  that  I  should  use 
this  hard-earned  capital  in  a  productive  way,  and  not  give  it  to  the 
culprit  who  would  waste  it  in  debauchery  and  worse  if  possible." 

"Ill-gotten  goods  seldom  prosper,"  said  Theresa,  without  looking 
up.  "Things  may  go  along  all  right  for  ten  years,  and  that  seems 
like  a  long  time,  but  the  vengeance  of  Heaven  comes  in  the 
eleventh,  as  it  has  already  come  in  the  case  of  little  Marcus." 

"Theresa — you're  talking  like  a  mad  woman,"  said  Jason  Philip 
at  the  top  of  his  voice.  With  that  he  picked  up  a  chair,  and  threw 
it  on  the  floor  so  violently  that  every  cup,  spoon,  and  plate  in  the 
room  shook. 

Theresa  turned  her  peasant  face  toward  him  without  the  shadow 
of  a  trace  of  fear.  He  was  a  trifle  alarmed:  "You'll  have  to  be 
responsible,  if  you  can,  for  any  misfortune  that  visits  us  in  the 
future."  She  spoke  these  words  with  a  deep  voice. 

"Do  you  think  I  am  a  bandit?"  said  Jason  Philip.  "Do  you 
think  I  want  to  pocket  the  money?  Don't  you  think  that  I  am 
capable  of  anything  better  or  higher  than  that?  Or  is  ambition 
of  any  sort  quite  beyond  your  powers  of  comprehension?" 

"Well,  what  ambitions  do  you  have?"  asked  Theresa  in  a  tone 
of  sullenness,  her  eyes  in  the  meantime  blinking. 

"Listen,"  Jason  Philip  continued,  as  he  sat  down  on  the  chair 
he  had  so  violently  abused  a  minute  before,  and  assumed  the  air 


32  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

of  a  teacher:  "The  culprit  has  got  to  submit,  and  that  with  good 
grace.  He  has  got  to  fall  on  his  knees  before  me.  And  he'll 
come  to  it.  I  have  made  some  inquiries;  I  am  on  his  tracks;  and 
I  know  that  he  has  just  about  reached  the  end  of  his  rope.  He'll 
come,  depend  upon  it  he'll  come  around,  and  when  he  does  he 
will  whine.  Then  I  am  going  to  take  him  into  the  business.  In 
this  way  we  will  see  whether  it  is  humanly  possible  to  make  a  useful 
man  out  of  him.  If  I  can,  and  if  he  sticks,  I'll  call  him  into  the 
office,  tell  him  the  whole  story,  make  everything  as  clear  as  day 
to  him,  and  then  offer  to  take  him  in  as  a  partner  in  the  firm.  You 
have  got  to  admit  that  he  will  be  a  made  man  if  he  becomes  my 
partner.  He  will  have  sense  enough  himself  to  see  this,  and  as 
sure  as  you  are  living,  he  will  first  kiss  my  hand  and  then  eat 
out  of  it  for  the  kindness  I  have  shown  him.  And  once  this  has 
all  been  put  through,  I  will  bind  him  to  us  more  firmly  than  ever 
by  having  him  marry  Philippina." 

A  wry  smile  disfigured  Theresa's  face.  "I  see,  so,  so,"  she 
said  in  a  sing-song  tone.  "You  will  have  him  marry  Philippina. 
I  take  it  that  you  feel  that  she  will  be  hard  to  marry,  and  that  the 
man  who  does  marry  her  will  have  his  hands  full.  Well,  that's 
not  a  bad  idea." 

"In  this  way,"  continued  Jason  Philip,  without  detecting  the 
scorn  in  Theresa's  words,  "the  account  between  the  culprit  and 
myself  will  be  settled.  He  will  become  a  decent  member  of 
society,  the  money  will  remain  in  the  family,  and  Philippina 
will  be  cared  for." 

"And  suppose  he  does  not  come;  suppose  he  does  not  fall  on 
his  knees;  suppose  you  have  made  a  miscalculation.  What  then?" 
Whether  Jason  Philip  himself  believed  what  he  had  said  Theresa 
could  not  determine.  Nor  had  she  the  slightest  desire  to  enlighten 
herself  on  this  point.  She  did  not  look  him  in  the  face,  but 
contented  herself  with  letting  her  eyes  rest  on  his  hands. 

"Well — there  will  be  time  then  to  change  my  plans,"  said  Jason 
Philip,  in  a  tone  of  peeved  vexation.  "Leave  it  to  me.  I  have 
turned  the  whole  situation  over  in  my  mind;  I  have  omitted  not 
the  slightest  detail.  I  know  men,  and  I  have  never  made  a  mis- 
take in  judging  them.  Mahlzeitl" 

With  that  he  went  out. 

Theresa  remained  seated  for  a  while,  her  arms  folded  across 
her  breast.  Then  she  got  up,  and  walked  over  to  the  door  that 
opened  on  to  the  court.  Suddenly  she  stopped  as  if  rooted  to  the 
sill:  she  caught  sight  of  Philippina,  who  was  then  sitting  by  the 


FOES,  BROTHERS,  A  FRIEND  AND  A  MASK      33 

window  mending  a  pair  of  socks.  On  her  face  there  was  an  expres- 
sion of  naivete  that  may  be  harmless  in  itself,  but  it  was  enough 
to  arouse  suspicion. 

"What's  the  matter  with  you,  why  didn't  you  go  to  school?" 
asked  Theresa  uneasily. 

"I  couldn't;  I  had  a  headache,"  said  Philippina  curtly,  and 
broke  the  thread  as  she  gave  a  hasty  jerk  at  the  needle.  Her  dis- 
hevelled hair  hung  down  over  her  forehead  and  quite  concealed 
her  face. 

Theresa  was  silent.  Her  gloom-laden  eyes  rested  on  the  diligent 
fingers  of  Philippina.  It  was  easy  to  suspect  that  the  girl  had 
heard  everything  Jason  Philip  had  said,  for  he  had  such  a  loud 
voice.  She  could  have  done  this  without  going  to  the  trouble  of 
listening  at  the  door.  Theresa  was  minded  to  give  the  girl  a 
talking-to;  but  she  controlled  herself,  and  quietly  withdrew. 

Philippina  looked  straight  through  her  as  she  left.  But  she  did 
not  interrupt  her  work,  and  in  a  short  while  she  could  be  heard 
humming  a  tune  to  herself.  There  was  a  challenge  in  her  voice. 

VII 

Daniel's  money  was  about  at  an  end.  The  new  sources  on 
which  he  had  hoped  to  be  able  to  draw  were  nowhere  to  be  dis- 
covered. He  defiantly  closed  the  doors  against  care;  and  when 
fear  showed  its  gloomy  face,  he  shut  up  shop,  and  went  out  to 
drown  his  sorrows  with  the  brethren  of  the  Vale  of  Tears. 

Schwalbe,  the  sculptor,  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  Zingarella, 
then  engaged  in  singing  lascivious  couplets  at  the  Academy,  and 
invited  the  fellows  to  join  him. 

The  Academy  was  a  theatre  of  the  lowest  description.  Smoking 
was,  of  course,  permitted.  When  they  arrived  the  performance 
was  over.  People  were  still  sitting  at  many  of  the  tables.  Reeking 
as  the  auditorium  was  with  the  stench  of  stale  beer,  it  left  the 
impression  of  a  dark,  dank  cavern. 

With  an  indifference  that  seemed  to  argue  that  Zingarella  made 
no  distinction  between  chairs  and  people,  she  took  her  seat  between 
the  sculptor  and  the  writer.  She  laughed,  and  yet  it  was  not 
laughter;  she  spoke,  and  her  words  were  empty;  she  stretched  out 
her  hands,  and  the  gesture  was  lifeless.  She  fixed  her  eyes  on 
no  one;  she  merely  gazed  about.  She  had  a  habit  of  shaking  her 
bracelet  in  a  way  that  aroused  sympathy.  And  after  making  a 
lewd  remark  she  would  turn  her  head  to  one  side,  and  thereby 


34  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

stagger  even  the  most  hardened  frequenter  of  this  sort  of  places. 
Her  complexion  had  been  ruined  by  rouge,  but  underneath  the 
skin  there  was  something  that  glimmered  like  water  under  thin  ice. 

The  former  winsomeness  of  her  lips  was  still  traceable  in  the 
sorrowed  curves  of  her  now  ravaged  mouth. 

At  times  her  restless  eyes,  seeking  whom  they  might  entangle, 
were  fixed  on  Daniel,  then  sitting  quite  alone  at  the  lower  end 
of  the  table.  In  order  to  avoid  the  unpleasant  sensation  associated 
with  the  thought  of  going  up  to  such  a  distinguished-looking  person 
and  making  herself  known  to  him,  she  would  have  been  grateful 
had  some  one  picked  her  up  and  thrown  her  bodily  at  his  feet. 
There  was  an  element  of  strangeness  about  him.  Zingarella  saw 
that  he  had  had  nothing  to  do  with  women  of  her  kind.  This 
tortured  her;  she  gnashed  her  teeth. 

Daniel  did  not  sense  her  hatred.  As  he  looked  into  her  face, 
marked  with  a  life  of  transgression  and  already  claimed  by  fate, 
he  built  up  in  his  own  soul  a  picture  of  inimitable  chastity.  He 
tried  to  see  the  playmate  of  a  god.  The  curtain  decorated  with 
the  distorted  face  of  a  harlequin,  the  acrobat  and  the  dog  trainer 
at  the  adjacent  table,  who  were  quarrelling  over  their  money,  the 
four  half-grown  gamblers  directly  behind  him,  the  big  fat  woman 
who  was  lying  stretched  out  on  a  bench  with  a  red  handkerchief 
over  her  face  and  trying  to  sleep,  the  writer  who  slandered  other 
writers,  the  inventor  who  discoursed  so  volubly  and  incessantly 
on  perpetual  motion — to  all  of  this  he  paid  not  the  slightest  bit  of 
attention.  For  him  it  could  just  as  well  have  been  in  the  bottom 
of  the  sea.  He  got  up  and  left. 

But  as  he  saw  the  snow-covered  streets  before  him  and  was 
unable  to  decide  whether  he  should  go  home  or  not,  Zingarella 
stepped  up  to  him.  "Come,  be  quick,  before  they  see  that  we  are 
together,"  she  whispered.  And  thus  they  walked  along  like  two 
fugitives,  whose  information  concerning  each  other  stops  short  with 
the  certainty  that  both  are  poor  and  wretched  and  are  making  their 
way  through  a  snow  storm. 

"What  is  your  name?"  asked  Daniel. 

"My  name  is  Anna  Siebert." 

The  clock  in  the  St.  Lorenz  Church  struck  three.  The  one 
up  in  the  tower  of  St.  Sebaldus  corroborated  this  reckoning  by  also 
striking  three  and  in  much  deeper  tones. 

They  came  to  an  old  house,  and  after  floundering  through  a 
long,  dark,  ill-smelling  passage  way,  entered  a  room  in  the  base- 
ment. Anna  Siebert  lighted  a  lamp  that  had  a  red  chimney. 


FOES,  BROTHERS,  A  FRIEND  AND  A  MASK       35 

Gaudy  garments  of  the  soubrette  hung  on  the  wall.  A  big,  grey 
cat  lay  on  the  table  cover  and  purred.  Anna  Siebert  took  the  cat 
in  her  arms  and  caressed  it.  Its  name  was  Zephyr.  It  accompanied 
her  wherever  she  went. 

Daniel  threw  himseli  on  a  chair  and  looked  at  the  lamp.  Zin- 
garella,  standing  before  the  mirror,  stroked  the  cat.  Gazing  dis- 
tractedly into  space,  she  remarked  that  the  manager  had  discharged 
her  because  the  public  was  no  longer  satisfied  with  her  work. 

"Is  this  what  you  call  the  public?"  asked  Daniel,  who  never 
once  took  his  eyes  from  the  lamp,  just  as  Anna  Siebert  kept  hers 
rigidly  fixed  on  the  desolate  distances  of  the  mirror.  "These 
fathers  of  families  who  side-step  every  now  and  then,  these  counter- 
jumpers,  the  mere  looks  of  whom  is  enough  to  snatch  your  clothing 
from  your  body,  this  human  filth  at  the  sight  of  which  God  must 
conceal  His  face  in  shame — this  is  what  you  call  the  public?" 

"Well,  however  that  may  be,"  Anna  Siebert  continued  in  a 
colourless  voice,  "the  manager  rushed  into  my  dressing  room,  threw 
the  contract  at  my  feet,  and  said  I  had  swindled  him.  How  on 
earth  could  I  have  swindled  him?  I  am  no  prima  donna  and  my 
agent  had  told  him  so.  You  can't  expect  a  Patti  on  twenty  marks 
a  week.  In  Elberfeld  I  got  twenty-five,  and  a  year  ago  in  Zurich 
I  even  drew  sixty.  Now  he  comes  to  me  and  says  he  doesn't  need 
to  pay  me  anything.  What  am  I  to  live  off  of?  And  you've  got 
to  live,  haven't  you,  Zephyr,"  said  Anna  as  she  picked  up  the  cat, 
pressed  its  warm  fur  to  her  cheek,  and  repeated,  "You've  got  to 
live." 

She  let  her  arms  fall  to  her  sides,  the  cat  sprang  on  the  floor, 
hunched  up  its  back,  wagged  its  tail,  and  purred.  She  then  went 
up  to  Daniel,  fell  on  her  knees,  and  laid  her  head  on  his  side. 
"I  have  reached  the  end,"  she  murmured  in  a  scarcely  audible 
voice,  "I  am  at  the  end  of  all  things." 

The  snow  beat  against  the  window  panes.  With  an  expression 
on  his  face  as  though  his  own  thoughts  were  murdering  each  other, 
Daniel  looked  into  the  corner  from  which  Zephyr's  yellowish  eyes 
were  shining.  The  muscles  of  his  face  twitched  like  a  fish  on  being 
taken  from  the  hook. 

And  as  he  cowered  in  this  fashion,  the  poor  girl  pressed  against 
his  body,  his  shoulders  lowered,  past  visions  again  arose  from  the 
depths  of  the  sea.  First  he  heard  a  ravishing  arpeggio  in  A-flat  major 
and  above  it,  a  majestic  theme,  commanding  quiet,  as  it  were,  in 
sixteenth  triads.  The  two  blended,  in  forte,  with  a  powerful 
chord  of  sevens.  There  was  a  struggling,  a  separating,  a  wandering 


36  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

on,  and  out  of  the  subdued  pianissimo  there  arose  and  floated  in 
space  a  gentle  voice  in  E-flat  minor.  O  voice  from  the  sea,  O 
humanity  on  earth!  The  eighth  note,  unpitiable  as  ever  in  its 
elemental  power,  cut  into  the  bass  with  the  strength  that  moves 
and  burrows  as  it  advances,  until  it  was  caught  up  by  the  redeemed 
voice  in  E-flat  major.  And  now  everything  suddenly  became  real. 
What  had  formerly  been  clouds  and  dreams,  longing  and  wishing, 
at  last  took  shape  and  form  and  stood  before  him.  Indeed  he  him- 
self became  true,  real,  and  conscious  of  his  existence  in  a  world  of 
actualities. 

On  his  way  home  he  covered  his  face  with  his  hands,  for  the 
windows  of  the  houses  gaped  at  him  like  the  hollow  eyes  of  a 
demi-monde. 


VIII 

Zingarella  could  not  imagine  why  the  strange  man  had  left.  He 
seemed  to  be  quite  indifferent.  Her  heart  beat  with  numerical 
accuracy,  but  there  was  no  strength  in  the  beats.  The  sole  creature 
through  which  she  was  bound  to  the  world  was  Zephyr. 

Night  followed  night,  day  followed  day.  Each  was  like  the 
preceding.  She  spoke  when  people  took  enough  trouble  to  speak 
to  her.  She  laughed  when  they  had  the  incomprehensible  desire 
to  hear  laughter.  To-day  she  wrapped  this  dress  around  her  shiv- 
ering body,  to-morrow  another.  She  waited  for  the  time  to  come 
when  she  was  to  do  something  definite.  She  lay  in  bed  and 
dreaded  the  darkness;  she  pondered  on  the  injustice  of  the  world; 
she  thought  of  her  own  disgrace,  and  reflected  on  the  need  that 
surrounded  her.  It  was  too  much  for  her  to  bear. 

A  man  would  come,  and  at  daylight  he  would  leave  and  mingle 
with  the  rest  of  the  people  on  the  street.  When  she  awoke  she 
could  no  longer  recall  what  he  looked  like.  The  landlady  would 
bring  in  soup  and  meat.  Then  some  one  knocked  at  the  door;  but 
she  did  not  open  it.  She  had  no  desire  to  find  out  who  it  was. 
Perhaps  it  was  the  man  who  had  been  with  her  the  night  before; 
perhaps  it  was  another. 

She  had  neither  curiosity  nor  hope.  Her  soul  had  dissolved 
like  a  piece  of  salt  in  water.  When  she  returned  home  on  the 
third  day  she  found  Zephyr  lying  by  the  coal-scuttle  dead.  She 
knelt  down,  touched  the  cold  fur,  wrinkled  her  brow,  shook  her 
bracelet,  and  went  out. 

It  was  getting  along  toward  night,  and  the  air  was  heavy  with 


FOES,  BROTHERS,  A  FRIEND  AND  A  MASK      37 

mist.  She  went  first  through  lighted  streets,  and  then  turned  into 
others  that  were  not  lighted.  She  passed  through  avenues  of 
leafless  trees,  and  walked  across  silent  squares.  The  snow  made 
walking  difficult.  When  it  was  too  deep,  she  was  obliged  to  stop 
every  now  and  then  and  take  a  deep  breath. 

She  reached  the  river  at  a  point  where  the  shore  was  quite  flat 
and  the  water  shallow.  Without  thinking  for  a  moment,  without 
a  moment's  hesitation,  just  as  if  she  were  blind,  or  as  if  she  saw 
a  bridge  where  there  was  none,  she  walked  in. 

First  she  felt  the  water  trickling  into  her  shoes.  Then  she  could 
feel  her  legs  getting  wet,  as  her  clothes,  soft,  slippery,  and  ice-cold, 
clung  to  her  body.  Now  her  breast  was  under  the  water,  and 
now  her  neck.  She  sank  down,  glided  away,  took  one  deep  breath, 
smiled,  and  as  she  smiled  she  lost  consciousness. 

The  next  day  her  body  was  washed  up  on  the  shore  some  dis- 
tance beyond  the  city.  It  was  taken  to  the  morgue  of  the  Rochus 
Cemetery. 

IX 

Schwalbe,  the  sculptor,  was  attending  a  funeral.  His  nephew 
had  died,  and  was  being  buried  in  the  same  cemetery. 

As  he  passed  by  the  morgue  he  caught  sight  of  the  body  of  a 
girl.  After  the  child  had  been  buried  he  went  back  to  the  morgue. 
A  few  people  were  standing  near  the  body,  one  of  whom  said, 
"She  was  a  singer  down  at  the  Academy." 

Schwalbe  was  struck  by  the  pure  and  beautiful  expression  on  the 
girl's  face.  He  studied  it  long  and  with  no  little  emotion.  Then 
he  went  to  the  superintendent,  and  asked  if  he  might  take  a  death 
mask.  The  permission  was  given  him,  and  in  a  few  hours  he 
returned  with  the  necessary  implements. 

When  he  removed  the  mask  from  the  face,  he  held  something 
truly  wonderful  in  his  hands.  It  showed  the  features  of  a 
sixteen-year-old  girl,  a  face  full  at  once  of  sweetness  and  melan- 
choly, and,  most  charming  of  all,  an  angelic  smile  on  the  curved 
lips  of  this  mouth  of  sorrow.  It  resembled  the  work  of  a 
renowned  artist,  so  much  so  that  the  sculptor  was  suddenly  seized 
with  a  burning  desire  to  regain  his  lost  art. 

He  was  nevertheless  obliged  within  a  week  to  sell  the  mask 
to  the  caster  by  whom  he  was  employed  in  Pfannenschmied  Street. 
Schwalbe  needed  ready  money.  The  caster  hung  the  mask  by  the 
door  at  the  entrance  to  his  shop. 


38  THE  GOOSE  MAN 


At  the  end  of  December  Daniel  found  himself  with  not  a  cent 
of  cash,  so  that  he  was  obliged  to  sell  his  sole  remaining  treasure, 
the  score  of  the  Bach  mass  in  B-minor.  Spindler  had  presented 
it  to  him  when  he  left,  and  now  he  had  to  take  it  to  the  second- 
hand dealer  and  part  with  it  for  a  mere  pittance. 

Unless  he  cared  to  lie  in  bed  the  whole  day,  he  was  obliged  to 
walk  the  streets  in  order  to  keep  warm.  His  poverty  made  it  out 
of  the  question  for  him  to  go  to  any  of  the  cafes,  and  so  he  was 
excluded  from  association  with  the  brethren  of  the  Vale  of  Tears. 
He  had  moreover  taken  a  violent  dislike  to  them. 

One  evening  he  was  standing  out  in  front  of  the  Church  of 
/Egydius,  listening  to  the  organ  that  some  one  was  playing.  The 
icy  wind  blew  through  his  thin  clothing.  When  the  concert  was 
over  he  went  down  to  the  square,  and  leaned  up  against  the  wall 
of  one  of  the  houses.  He  was  tremendously  lonesome;  he  was 
lonely  beyond  words. 

Just  then  two  men  came  along  who  wished  to  enter  the  very 
house  against  the  wall  of  which  he  leaned.  He  was  cold.  One 
of  these  men  was  Benjamin  Dorn,  the  other  was  Jordan.  Benja- 
min Dorn  spoke  to  him;  Jordan  stood  by  in  silence,  apparently 
quite  appreciative  of  the  condition  in  which  the  young  man  found 
himself,  as  he  stood  there  in  the  cold  and  made  unfriendly  replies 
to  the  questions  that  were  put  to  him.  Jordan  invited  Daniel  up 
to  his  room.  Daniel,  chilled  to  the  very  marrow  of  his  bones,  and 
able  to  visualise  nothing  but  a  warm  stove,  accepted  the  invitation. 

Thus  Daniel  came  in  contact  with  Jordan's  family.  He  had 
three  children:  Gertrude,  aged  nineteen,  Eleanore,  aged  sixteen, 
and  Bcnno,  fifteen  years  old  and  still  a  student  at  the  gymnasium. 
His  wife  was  dead. 

Gertrude  was  said  to  be  a  pietist.  She  went  to  church  every 
day,  and  had  an  inclination  toward  the  Catholic  religion,  a  fact 
which  gave  Jordan,  as  an  inveterate  Protestant,  no  little  worry. 
During  the  day  she  looked  after  the  house;  but  as  soon  as  she  had 
everything  in  order,  she  would  take  her  place  by  the  quilting 
frame  and  work  on  crowns  of  thorns,  hearts  run  through  with 
swords,  and  languishing  angels  for  a  mission.  There  she  would 
sit,  hour  after  hour,  with  bowed  head  and  knit. 

The  first  time  Daniel  saw  her  she  had  on  a  Nile  green  dress, 
fastened  about  her  hips  with  a  girdle  of  scales,  while  her  wavy 
brown  hair  hung  loose  over  her  shoulders.  It  was  in  this  make-up 


FOES,  BROTHERS,  A  FRIEND  AND  A  MASK       39 

that  he  always  saw  her  when  he  thought  of  her  years  after:  Nile 
green  dress,  bowed  head,  sitting  at  the  quilting  frame,  and  quite 
unaware  of  his  presence,  a  picture  of  unamiability,  conscious  or 
affected. 

Eleanore  was  entirely  different.  She  was  like  a  lamp  carried 
through  a  dark  room. 

For  some  time  she  had  been  employed  in  the  offices  of  the  Pru- 
dentia,  for  she  wished  to  make  her  own  living.  So  far  as  it  was 
humanly  possible  to  determine  from  her  casual  remarks,  she  thor- 
oughly enjoyed  her  work.  She  liked  to  make  out  receipts  for 
premiums,  lick  stamps,  copy  letters,  and  see  so  many  people  come 
in  and  go  out.  Stout  old  Diruf  and  lanky  Zittel  did  everything 
they  could  to  keep  her  interested,  and  if,  despite  their  efforts,  it 
was  seen  that  a  morose  mood  was  invading  her  otherwise  cheerful 
disposition,  they  took  her  out  to  the  merry-go-round,  and  in  a 
short  time  her  wonted  buoyancy  had  returned. 

She  seemed  like  a  child,  and  yet  she  was  every  inch  a  woman. 
She  insisted  on  wearing  her  little  felt  cap  at  a  jaunty  angle  on  her 
blond  hair.  When  she  entered  the  room,  the  atmosphere  in  it 
underwent  a  change;  it  was  easier  to  breathe;  it  was  fresher. 
People  somehow  disapproved  of  the  fact  that  her  eyes  were  so 
radiantly  blue,  and  that  her  two  rows  of  perfect  white  teeth  were 
constantly  shining  from  out  between  her  soft,  peach-like  lips. 
They  said  she  was  light-hearted;  they  said  she  was  a  butterfly. 
Benjamin  Dorn  was  of  the  opinion  that  she  was  a  creature  possessed 
of  the  devil  of  sensuality  and  finding  her  completest  satisfaction 
in  earthly  finery  and  frippery.  For  some  time  there  had  been  an 
affair  of  an  intimate  nature  between  her  and  Baron  von  Auffenberg. 
Just  what  it  was  no  one  knew  precisely;  the  facts  were  not  obtain- 
able. But  Benjamin  Dorn,  experienced  ferreter  that  he  was, 
could  not  see  two  people  of  different  sexes  together  without  imagin- 
ing that  he  was  an  accomplice  in  the  hereditary  sin  of  human  kind. 
And  one  day  he  caught  Eleanore  alone  in  the  company  of  Baron 
von  Auffenberg.  From  that  day  on  she  was,  in  his  estimation,  a 
lost  soul. 

The  fact  concerning  Eleanore  was  this:  life  never  came  very 
close  to  her.  It  comes  right  up  to  other  people,  strangles  them, 
or  drags  them  along  with  it.  It  kept  its  distance  from  Eleanore, 
for  she  lived  in  a  glass  case.  If  she  had  sorrow  of  any  kind,  if 
some  painfully  indeterminable  sensation  was  gnawing  at  her  soul, 
if  the  vulgarity  and  banality  of  a  base  and  disjointed  world  came 
her  way,  the  glass  case  in  which  she  lived  simply  became  more 


40  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

spacious  than  ever,  and  the  things  or  thoughts  that  swarmed  around 
it  more  and  more  incomprehensible. 

One  can  always  laugh  if  one  lives  in  a  glass  case.  Even  bad 
dreams  remain  on  the  outside.  Even  longing  becomes  nothing 
more  than  a  purple  breath  which  clouds  the  crystal  from  without, 
not  from  within. 

The  people  were  quite  right  in  saying  that  Jordan  was  bringing 
up  his  daughters  like  princesses.  Both  were  far  removed  from  the 
customary  things  of  life:  the  one  was  translated  to  the  realm  of 
darkness,  the  other  to  that  of  light. 

Daniel  saw  both  of  them.  They  were  just  as  strange  to  him  as 
he  to  them.  He  saw  the  brother,  too,  a  tall,  glib,  dapper  youth. 
He  saw  the  old  house  with  its  dilapidated  stairs,  its  rooms  filled 
with  cumbersome,  provincial  furniture.  He  saw  the  alternating 
currents  of  life  in  this  family:  there  was  now  rest,  now  unrest, 
now  quiet,  now  storm.  Life  flowed  out  from  the  house,  and  then 
life,  the  same  or  of  a  different  origin,  flowed  back  in  again. 
When  he  came,  he  talked  with  Jordan  himself  rather  than  with 
any  one  else;  for  he  always  knew  when  Jordan  would  be  at  home. 
They  spoke  in  a  free  and  easy  fashion  and  about  things  in  general. 
If  their  conversation  could  be  characterised  more  fully,  it  might 
be  said  that  Daniel  was  reserved  and  Jordan  tactful.  Gertrude 
sat  by  the  table  and  attended  to  her  needlework. 

Daniel  came  and  warmed  himself  by  the  stove.  If  he  was 
offered  a  sandwich  or  a  cup  of  coffee  he  declined.  If  the  offer 
was  made  with  noticeable  insistency,  he  shook  his  head  and  dis- 
torted the  features  of  his  face  until  he  resembled  an  irritated  ape. 
It  was  the  peasant  spirit  of  defiance  in  him  that  made  him  act  this 
way.  He  nourished  a  measure  of  small-minded  anxiety  lest  he  be 
indebted  to  somebody  for  something.  To  temptations,  yielding  to 
which  would  have  been  spiritually  mortifying,  he  was  impervious. 
When,  consequently,  his  need  became  overpowering,  he  simply 
stayed  away. 

XI 

His  want  grew  into  a  purple  sheen.  To  him  there  was  an  ele- 
ment of  the  ridiculous  in  the  whole  situation:  it  was  1882  and  he 
had  nothing  to  eat;  he  was  twenty-three  years  old  and  quite  with- 
out food. 

Frau  Hadebusch,  virago  that  she  could  be  when  a  dubious 
debtor  failed  to  fulfil  his  obligations,  stormed  her  way  up  the  stepi, 


FOES,  BROTHERS,  A  FRIEND  AND  A  MASK      41 

The  rent  was  long  overdue,  and  uncanny  councils  were  being  held 
in  the  living  room,  in  which  an  invalid  from  the  Wasp's  Nest  and 
a  soap-maker  from  Kamerarius  Street  were  taking  part. 

In  his  despair,  Daniel  thought  of  entering  the  army.  He 
reported  at  the  barracks,  was  examined — and  rejected  because  of 
a  hollow  chest. 

At  first  there  was  the  purple  sheen.  He  saw  it  as  he  stood  on 
the  hangman's  bridge  and  looked  down  into  the  water  where  pieces 
of  ice  were  drifting  about.  But  when  he  raised  his  distrersed 
face  a  gigantic  countenance  became  visible.  The  great  vaulted 
arch  of  heaven  was  a  countenance  fearfully  distorted  by  vengeance 
and  scorn.  Of  escape  from  it  there  could  be  no  thought.  Within 
his  soul  everything  became  wrapped  in  darkness.  Tones  and  pic- 
tures ran  together,  giving  the  disagreeably  inarticulate  impression 
that  would  be  made  by  drawing  a  wet  rag  across  a  fresh,  well- 
ordered  creation. 

As  he  walked  on,  it  seemed  to  him  that  the  horror  of  the  vision 
was  diminishing.  The  countenance  became  smaller  and  more 
amiable.  It  was  now  not  much  larger  than  the  facade  of  a  church 
and  what  wrath  remained  seemed  to  be  concentrated  in  the  fore- 
head. An  old  woman  passed  by,  carrying  apples  in  her  apron. 
He  trembled  at  the  smell  of  them;  but  he  did  not  reach  out;  he 
did  not  try  to  take  a  single  one  of  them  from  her;  he  still  held 
himself  in  control.  By  this  time  the  entire  vision  was  not  much 
larger  than  the  top  of  a  tree,  and  in  it  were  the  traces  of  mercy. 

The  sun  was  high  in  the  heavens,  the  snow  was  melting,  birds 
were  chirping  everywhere.  As  he  sauntered  along  with  uncertain 
steps  through  Pfannenschmied  Street  he  suddenly  stopped  as  if 
rooted  to  the  pavement.  There  was  the  vision:  he  caught  sight 
of  it  in  bodily  form  on  the  door  jamb  of  the  shop.  He  could 
not  see  that  it  was  the  mask  of  Zingarella.  Of  course  not,  for  it 
was  a  transfigured  face,  and  how  could  he  have  grasped  a  reality 
in  his  present  state  of  mind?  He  looked  from  within  out.  The 
thing  before  him  was  a  vision;  it  joined  high  heaven  with  the 
earth  below;  it  was  a  promise.  He  could  have  thrown  himself 
down  on  the  street  and  wept,  for  it  seemed  to  him  that  he  was 
saved. 

The  incomparable  resignation  and  friendly  grief  in  the  ex- 
pression of  the  mask,  the  sanctity  under  the  long  eyelashes,  the 
half  extinguished  smile  playing  around  the  mouth  of  sorrow,  the 
element  of  ghostlincss,  a  being  far  removed  from  death  and  equally 
far  removed  from  life — all  this  caused  his  feeling  to  swell  into 


42  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

one  of  credulous  devotion.  His  entire  future  seemed  to  depend 
upon  coming  into  possession  of  the  mask.  Without  a  moment's 
hesitation  or  consideration  he  rushed  into  the  shop. 

Within  he  found  a  young  man  whom  the  caster  addressed  most 
respectfully  as  Dr.  Benda,  and  who  was  about  thirty  years  old. 
Dr.  Benda  was  being  shown  a  number  of  successful  casts  of  a 
figure  entitled  "The  Fountain  of  Virtue."  It  was  quite  a  little 
while  before  the  caster  turned  to  Daniel  and  asked  him  what  he 
wanted.  In  a  somewhat  rude  voice  and  with  an  unsteady  gesture, 
Daniel  made  it  clear  to  him  that  he  wished  to  buy  the  mask. 
The  caster  removed  it  from  the  door,  laid  it  on  the  counter,  and 
named  his  price.  He  looked  at  the  shabby  clothing  of  the  newly 
arrived  customer,  concluded  at  once  that  the  price,  ten  marks, 
would  be  more  than  he  could  afford,  and  turned  again  to  Dr. 
Benda,  so  that  Daniel  might  have  time  to  make  up  his  mind. 

The  two  conversed  for  quite  a  while.  When  the  caster  finally 
turned  around,  he  was  not  a  little  surprised  to  see  that  Daniel 
was  still  standing  at  the  counter.  He  stood  there  in  fact  with 
half  closed  eyes,  his  left  hand  lying  on  the  face  of  the  mask. 
The  caster  exchanged  a  somewhat  dazed  glance  with  Dr.  Benda, 
who,  in  a  moment  of  forewarning  sympathy,  grasped  the  situation 
perfectly  in  which  the  stranger  found  himself.  Dr.  Benda  some~ 
how  understood,  owing  to  his  instinct  for  appreciation  of  unusual 
predicaments,  the  man's  poverty,  his  isolation,  and  even  the  ardour 
of  his  wish.  Subduing  as  well  as  he  might  the  feeling  of  ordi- 
nary reserve,  he  stepped  up  to  Daniel,  and  said  to  him  calmly, 
quietly,  seriously,  and  without  the  slightest  trace  of  condescension: 
"If  you  will  permit  me  to  advance  you  the  money  for  the  mask, 
you  will  do  me  a  substantial  favor." 

Daniel  gritted  his  teeth — just  a  little.  His  face  turned  to  a 
greenish,  hue.  But  the  face  of  his  would-be  friend,  schooled  in 
affairs  of  the  spirit,  showed  a  winning  trace  of  human  kindness. 
It  conquered  Daniel;  it  made  him  gentle.  He  submitted.  Dr. 
Benda  laid  the  money  for  the  mask  on  the  counter,  and  Daniel 
was  as  silent  as  the  tomb. 

When  they  left  the  shop,  Daniel  held  the  mask  under  his 
arm  so  tightly  that  the  paper  wrapping  was  crushed,  if  the  mask 
itself  was  not.  The  sad  state  of  his  clothing  and  his  haggard 
appearance  in  general  struck  Dr.  Benda  at  once  and  forcibly.  He 
needed  to  ask  but  a  few  well  chosen  questions  to  get  at  the  under- 
lying cause  of  this  misery,  physical  and  spiritual,  in  human  form. 


FOES,  BROTHERS,  A  FRIEND  AND  A  MASK       43 

He  pretended   that  he  had   not   lunched   and   invited   Daniel   to 
be  his  guest  at  the  inn  at  the  sign  of  the  Grape. 

Daniel  felt  that  his  soul  had  suddenly  been  unlocked  by  a 
magic  key.  At  last — he  had  ears  and  could  hear,  eyes  and  could 
see.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he  had  come  up  to  earth  from  out 
of  some  lightless,  subterranean  cavern.  And  when  they  separated 
he  had  a  friend. 


THE  NERO  OF  TO-DAY 


THE  spectacle  of  wellnigh  complete  degeneracy  offered  by  the 
roister-doistering  slough  brethren  of  the  Vale  of  Tears  gave 
Herr  Carovius  a  new  lease  on  life.  He  had  a  really  affable  tend- 
ency to  associate  with  men  who  were  standing  just  on  the  brink 
of  human  existence.  He  always  drank  a  great  deal  of  liqueur. 
The  brand  he  preferred  above  all  others  was  what  is  known  as 
Knickebein.  Once  he  had  enjoyed  his  liberal  potion,  he  became 
jovial,  friendly,  companionable.  In  these  moods  he  would  venture 
the  hardiest  of  assertions,  not  merely  in  the  field  of  eroticism,  but 
against  the  government  and  divine  providence  as  well. 

And  yet,  when  he  trippled  home  with  mincing  steps,  there  was 
in  his  face  an  expression  of  cowardly,  petty  smirking.  It  was  the 
sign  of  his  inner  return  to  virtuous  living;  for  his  night  was  not 
as  his  day.  The  one  belied  the  other. 

He  had  a  quite  respectable  income;  the  house  in  which  he  lived 
was  his  own  private  property.  It  was  pointed  out  to  strangers  as 
one  of  the  sights  of  the  town;  it  was  certainly  one  of  the  oldest 
and  gloomiest  buildings  in  that  part  of  the  country.  An  especially 
attractive  feature  of  it  was  the  smart  and  graceful  bay-window. 
Above  the  beautifully  arched  outer  door  there  was  a  patrician  coat- 
of-arms,  consisting  of  two  crossed  spears  with  a  helmet  above. 
This  was  chiselled  into  the  stone.  In  the  narrow  court  was  a 
draw-well  literally  set  in  a  frame  of  moss.  Each  floor  of  the 
house  had  its  own  gallery,  richly  supplied  with  the  most  artistic 
of  carvings.  The  stairway  was  spacious;  the  tread  of  the  steps  was 
broad,  the  elevation  slight;  there  were  four  landings.  It  sym- 
bolised in  truth  the  leisurely,  comfortable  tarrying  of  centuries 
gone  before  and  now  a  matter  of  easy  memory  only. 

Often  in  the  nighttime,  Herr  Carovius  recognised  in  the  dis- 
tance the  massive  figure  of  his  brother-in-law,  Andreas  Doderlein, 
the  professor  of  music.  Not  wishing  to  meet  him,  Herr  Carovius 
would  stand  at  the  street  corner,  until  the  light  from  Doderlein's 
study  assured  him  that  the  professor  was  at  home.  On  other  oc- 

44 


THE  NERO  OF  TO-DAY  45 

casions  he  would  come  in  contact  with  the  occupant  of  the  second 
floor,  Dr.  Friedrich  Benda.  When  these  two  came  together,  there 
was  invariably  a  competitive  tipping  of  hats  and  passing  of  com- 
pliments. Each  wished  to  outdo  the  other  in  matters  of  courtesy. 
Neither  was  willing  to  take  precedence  over  the  other.  The 
polished  civility  of  the  young  man  made  an  even  greater  degree 
of  pretty  behaviour  on  the  part  of  Herr  Carovius  imperative,  with 
the  result  that  his  excessive  refinement  of  manners  made  him 
appear  awkward,  while  his  embarrassment  made  coherent  speech 
difficult  and  at  times  impossible. 

When  however  he  came  alone,  he  would  take  the  huge  key 
from  his  pocket,  unlock  the  door,  light  a  candle,  hold  it  high 
above  his  head,  and  spy  into  every  nook  and  cranny  of  the  barn- 
like  hall  before  entering  his  apartment  on  the  ground  floor. 

II 

Herr  Carovius  was  a  regular  customer  at  the  Crocodile  Inn ;  a 
table  was  always  reserved  for  him.  Around  it  there  assembled 
CTery  noon  the  following  companions:  Solicitor  of  the  Treasury 
Korn,  assistant  magistrate  Hesselberger,  assistant  postmaster  Kitzler, 
apothecary  Pflaum,  jeweller  Griindlich,  and  baker  Degen.  Judge 
Kleinlein  also  joined  them  occasionally  as  a  guest  of  honour. 

They  gossiped  about  their  neighbours,  their  acquaintances,  their 
friends,  and  their  colleagues.  What  they  said  ran  the  whole 
gamut  of  human  emotions  from  an  innocent  anecdote  up  to  venom- 
ous calumny.  Not  a  single  event  was  immune  from  malicious 
backstairs  comment.  Reputations  were  sullied  without  discrimi- 
nation; objections  were  taken  to  the  conduct  of  every  living  soul; 
every  family  was  shown  to  have  its  skeleton  in  the  closet. 

When  the  luncheon  was  finished,  the  men  all  withdrew  and 
went  about  their  business,  with  the  exception  of  Herr  Carovius. 
He  remained  to  read  the  papers.  For  him  it  was  one  of  the 
most  important  hours  of  the  day.  Having  feasted  his  ears  with 
friends  in  private,  he  now  turned  to  a  study  of  the  follies,  trans- 
gressions, and  tragedies  that  make  up  everyday  life. 

He  read  three  papers  every  day:  one  was  a  local  sheet,  one  a 
great  Berlin  daily,  and  the  third  a  paper  published  in  Hamburg. 
He  never  deviated;  it  was  these  three,  week  in  and  week  out.  And 
he  read  them  from  beginning  to  end;  politics,  special  articles,  and 
advertisements  were  of  equal  concern  to  him.  In  this  way  he 
familiarised  himself  with  the  advance  of  civilisation,  the  changes 


46  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

civic  life  was  undergoing,  and  the  general  status  of  the  artistocracy, 
bourgeoisie,  and  proletariat. 

Nothing  escaped  him.  He  was  as  much  interested  in  the  murder 
of  a  peasant  in  a  Pommeranian  village  as  he  was  in  the  loss  of  a 
pearl  necklace  on  the  Boulevard  des  Italiens  in  Paris.  He  read 
with  equal  concentration  of  the  sinking  of  a  steamer  in  the  South 
Sea  and  the  wedding  of  a  member  of  the  Royal  Family  in  West- 
minster Abbey.  He  could  work  up  just  as  much  enthusiasm  over 
the  latest  fashions  as  he  could  over  the  massacring  of  enslaved 
Armenians  by  the  Turks.  If  he  read  with  care  and  reflection  of 
the  death  of  a  leading  citizen,  he  pursued  the  same  course  with 
regard  to  the  reprehending  of  a  relatively  harmless  vagabond. 

It  is  only  fair  to  remark,  however,  that  his  real  sympathy  was 
with  those  events  that  have  to  be  entered  on  the  calamitous  side 
of  life's  ledger.  This  was  due  to  a  bizarre  kink  in  his  philosophy: 
he  studied  the  world  primarily  from  the  point  of  view  of  its 
wars,  earthquakes,  floods,  hailstorms,  cyclones,  and  public  and 
private  tragedies  in  the  lives  of  men.  Happy  and  reassuring  events, 
such  as  the  birth  of  a  healthy  child,  the  conferring  of  an  order 
of  distinction,  heroic  deeds,  the  winning  of  a  prize  in  the  lottery, 
the  publication  of  a  good  book,  or  the  announcement  of  a  legiti- 
mate and  successful  speculation  made  no  impression  on  him.  At 
times  they  even  annoyed  him.  He  kept  his  mind,  in  other  words, 
riveted  on  the  evils,  sorrows,  woes,  and  tribulations  that  come  to 
pass  either  on  this  earth  or  in  the  starry  firmament  above,  and 
that  were  somehow  brought  to  his  attention. 

His  brain  was  a  storehouse  of  fearful  and  ferocious  happenings; 
it  was  a  catalogue,  an  inventory  of  disease,  seduction,  theft,  rob- 
bery, larceny,  assassination,  murder,  catastrophe,  pest,  incest,  suicide, 
duel,  bankruptcy,  and  the  never  failing  family  quarrel. 

If  he  chanced  to  enrich  his  collection  by  the  addition  of  some 
especially  curious  or  unheard-of  incident,  he  took  out  his  pocket 
diary,  noted  the  date,  and  then  wrote:  "In  Amberg  a  preacher 
had  a  hemorrhage  while  delivering  his  morning  sermon."  Or: 
"In  Cochin  China  a  tiger  killed  and  ate  fourteen  children,  and 
then,  forcing  its  way  into  the  bungalow  of  a  settler,  bit  off  the 
head  of  a  woman  as  she  was  sleeping  peacefully  by  the  side  of 
her  husband."  Or:  "In  Copenhagen  a  former  actress,  now  ninety 
years  old,  mounted  a  huge  vegetable  basket  on  the  market  place, 
and  recited  Lady  Macbeth's  monologue.  Her  unconventional  be- 
haviour attracted  such  a  large  crowd  of  passersby  that  several  people 
were  crushed  to  death  in  the  excitement." 


THE  NERO  OF  TO-DAY  47 

This  done,  he  would  go  home,  happy  as  a  man  can  be.  To 
idlers  standing  in  the  doorways  or  servants  looking  out  the  windows 
he  would  extend  the  greetings  of  the  day,  and  that  with  really 
conspicuous  cordiality. 

If  a  fire  broke  out  in  the  city,  he  was  present.  As  his  eye* 
peered  into  the  flames,  they  seemed  intoxicated,  obsessed,  seized 
with  uncanniness.  He  would  hum  a  tune  of  some  sort,  look  into 
the  anxious  faces  of  those  immediately  concerned,  busy  himself 
with  whatever  had  been  salvaged,  and  attempt  to  force  his  gratui- 
tous advice  on  the  fire  chief. 

If  a  prominent  citizen  died,  he  never  failed  to  attend  the 
funeral,  and,  where  possible,  to  join  the  procession  on  the  way  to 
the  cemetery.  He  would  stand  by  the  grave  with  bowed  head, 
and  take  in  every  word  of  the  funeral  discourse.  But  his  lips 
twitched  in  a  peculiar  fashion,  as  if  he  felt  that  he  were  under- 
stood, and  flattered. 

And  in  truth  all  this  did  flatter  him.  The  defeat,  distress,  and 
death  of  other  people,  the  betrayals  that  take  place  in  any  com- 
munity, the  highhanded  injustice  of  those  in  power,  the  oppres- 
sion of  the  poor,  the  violence  that  was  done  to  right  and  right- 
eousness, and  the  sufferings  which  had  to  be  borne  by  thousands 
day  after  day,  all  this  flattered  him;  it  interested  him;  it  lulled 
him  into  a  comfortable  feeling  of  personal  security. 

But  then  he  sat  down  at  his  piano  at  home,  and  played  an 
adagio  of  Beethoven  or  an  impromptu  by  Schubert,  his  eyes  with 
fine  frenzy  rolling  in  the  meantime.  And  when  the  mighty 
chorus  in  a  Bach  oratorio  resounded,  he  became  pale  with  ecstasy. 
At  the  hearing  of  a  good  song  well  sung  he  could  shed  copious 
tears. 

He  idolised  music. 

He  was  a  provincial  with  unfettered  instincts.  He  was  an 
agitator  with  a  tendency  to  conservatism.  He  was  a  Nero  without 
servants,  without  power,  and  without  land.  He  was  a  musician 
from  despair  and  out  of  vanity.  He  was  a  Nero  in  our  own  day. 

He  was  the  Nero  of  our  day  living  in  three  rooms.  He  was 
a  lonely  bachelor  and  a  bookworm.  He  exchanged  his  views 
with  the  corner  grocer;  he  discussed  city  ordinances  with  the  night 
watchman;  he  was  a  tyrant  through  and  through  and  a  hangman 
at  heart;  he  indulged  in  eaves-dropping  at  the  shrine  of  fate,  and 
in  this,  way  concocted  the  most  improbable  of  combinations  and 
wanton  deeds  of  violence;  he  was  constantly  on  the  lookout  for 
misfortune,  litigation,  and  shame;  he  rejoiced  at  every  failure, 


48  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

and  was  delighted  with  oppression,  whether  at  home  or  abroad. 
He  hung  with  unqualified  joy  on  the  imagined  ruins  of  imaginary 
disaster,  and  took  equal  pleasure  in  the  actual  debacles  of  life  as  it 
was  lived  about  him.  And  alongside  of  this  innate  and  at  times 
unexpressed  gruesomeness  and  bloodthirstiness,  he  was  filled  with 
a  torturing  passion  for  music.  This  was  Herr  Carovius.  Such 
was  his  life. 


in 

For  nine  long  years,  that  is,  from  the  time  she  was  fifteen 
until  she  was  twenty-four,  his  sister  Marguerite  kept  house  for  him. 
She  got  his  breakfast,  made  his  bed,  darned  his  socks,  and  brushed 
his  clothes;  and  all  he  knew  about  her  was  that  she  had  yellowish 
hair,  a  skin  full  of  freckles,  and  a  timid,  child-like  voice.  His 
astonishment  was  consequently  unbounded  when  Andreas  Doderlein 
called  one  day  and  proposed  to  her.  He  had  moved  into  the 
house  the  year  before.  Herr  Carovius  was  amazed  for  the  very 
simple  reason  that  he  had  never  known  Marguerite  except  as  £ 
fourteen-year  old  girl. 

He  took  her  to  task.  With  unusual  effort  she  summoned  the 
courage  to  tell  him  that  she  was  going  to  marry  Doderlein.  "You 
are  a  shameless  prostitute,"  he  said,  though  he  did  not  dare  to 
show  Andreas  Doderlein  the  door.  The  wedding  took  place. 

One  evening  he  was  sitting  in  the  company  of  the  young  couple. 
Andreas  Doderlein,  being  in  an  unusually  happy  mood,  went  to 
the  piano,  and  began  playing  the  shepherd's  motif  from  Wagner's 
"Tristan  and  Isolde." 

Herr  Carovius  sprang  to  his  feet  as  if  stung  by  a  viper,  and 
exclaimed:  "Stop  playing  that  foul  magic!  You  know  as  well  as 
you  are  living  that  I  don't  believe  in  it." 

"What  do  you  mean,  brother?"  asked  Andreas  Doderlein,  his 
head  bowed  in  grief. 

"What  are  you  trying  to  do?  Are  you  trying  to  teach  me  some- 
thing about  this  poisoner  of  wells?"  shouted  Herr  Carovius,  and 
his  face  took  on  the  enraged  expression  of  a  hunchback  who  has 
just  been  taunted  about  his  deformity.  "Does  the  professor  im- 
agine that  he  knows  better  than  I  do  who  this  Richard  Wagner  is, 
this  comedian,  this  Jew  who  goes  about  masked  as  the  Germanic 
Messiah,  this  cacaphonist,  this  bungler,  botcher,  and  bully,  this 
court  sycophant,  this  Pulchinello  who  pokes  fun  at  the  whole 
German  Empire  and  the  rest  of  Europe  led  about  by  the  nose, 


THE  NERO  OF  TO-DAY  49 

this  Richard  Wagner?  Very  well,  if  you  have  anything  to  teach 
me  about  him,  go  on!  Proceed!  I  am  listening.  Go  on!  Pluck 
up  your  courage."  With  this  he  leaned  back  in  his  chair,  and 
laughed  a  laughter  punctuated  with  asthmatic  sighs,  his  hands 
in  the  meantime  resting  folded  across  his  stomach. 

Andreas  Doderlein  rose  to  his  full  stature,  see-sawed  a  bit  on 
the  tips  of  his  toes,  and  looked  down  on  Herr  Carovius  as  one 
might  look  down  upon  a  flea  that  one  had  caught  and  was  just 
in  the  act  of  crushing  between  two  finger  nails.  "Oh,  ho,"  he 
said,  "how  interesting!  Upon  my  word,  brother  Carovius,  you 
are  an  interesting  individual.  But  if  some  one  were  to  offer  me 
all  the  money  in  the  world,  I  should  not  like  to  be  so  ...  in- 
teresting. Not  I.  And  you,  Marguerite,  would  you  like  to  be  so 
interesting? " 

There  was  something  distinctly  annihilating  in  this  air  of 
superiority.  It  had  its  full  effect  on  Herr  Carovius:  his  unleashed 
laughter  was  immediately  converted  into  a  gurgling  titter.  He 
opened  his  eyes  wide  and  rolled  them  behind  his  nose-glasses, 
thus  making  himself  look  like  a  water-spitting  figure  on  a  civic 
fountain.  Marguerite,  however,  timid  as  she  was,  never  saying 
a  word  without  making  herself  smaller  by  hiding  her  hands,  glanced 
in  helpless  fashion  from  her  brother  to  her  husband,  and  dropped 
her  head  before  them. 

Was  the  feeling  of  Herr  Carovius  for  Andreas  Doderlein  one 
of  hatred?  It  was  hatred  and  more.  It  was  a  feeling  of  venom- 
ous embitterment  with  which  he  thought  of  him,  his  name,  his 
wife,  his  child,  the  thick,  bulky  wedding  ring  on  his  finger,  and 
the  gelatinous  mass  of  flesh  on  his  neck.  From  that  evening  on 
he  never  again  visited  his  sister.  If  Marguerite  got  up  enough 
courage  to  visit  him,  he  treated  her  with  crabbed  contempt.  She 
finally  came  to  the  point  where  she  would  pass  his  door  with  not 
a  thought  of  entering  it. 

When  the  first  child  was  born  and  the  maid  brought  him  the 
glad  tidings,  he  squinted  into  the  corner,  tittered,  and  made  bold 
to  say:  "Well,  my  congratulations.  It  is  good  that  the  Doderleins 
are  not  to  become  extinct,  for  so  long  as  one  of  them  is  living, 
flaisir  will  not  have  vanished  from  the  earth." 

Little  Dorothea  formed  in  time  the  habit  of  playing  on  the 
steps  or  around  the  old  windlass  well  in  the  backyard.  Herr 
Carovius  procured  forthwith  a  mean  dog  and  named  him  Ciesar. 
Cresar  was  tied  to  a  chain,  to  be  sure,  but  his  snarls,  his  growls,  his 
vicious  teeth  were  hardly  calculated  to  inspire  the  child  with  a 


50  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

love  for  the  place  near  him.     She  soon  stopped  playing  at  home. 

Four  years  had  elapsed  since  the  Carovius-Doderlein  wedding. 
Herr  Carovius  was  celebrating  his  birthday.  Marguerite  called 
with  Dorothea.  The  child  recited  a  poem  which  she  had  learned 
by  heart  for  her  uncle's  benefit.  Carovius  shook  with  laughter 
when  he  saw  the  girl  dressed  up  like  a  doll  and  realised  that  the 
recital  was  imminent.  Dorothea  had  of  course  the  enunciation 
of  one  of  her  age.  When  through,  Herr  Carovius  said:  "Honestly, 
it  would  never  have  occurred  to  me  that  such  a  little  toad  could 
croak  so  beautifully." 

Though  the  man  knew  so  little  about  women  that  it  would 
be  perilous  to  attempt  to  measure  his  ignorance  of  them,  he  never- 
theless felt,  as  he  looked  into  Marguerite's  radiant  face,  a  certain 
disappointment  in  life — a  disappointment  which  he  would  try 
at  once  to  benumb  but  which  delighted  him. 

IV 

About  this  time  Herr  Becker  died.  He  was  the  senior  city 
official,  and  had  been  living  in  the  second  story  of  the  apartment 
for  twenty-eight  years.  Dr.  Benda  moved  in  at  once  with  his 
mother. 

Carovius  told  all  about  this  at  the  reserved  table  in  the  Crocodile. 
His  companions  were  in  a  position  to  tell  him  a  great  deal  more 
about  the  ancestry  and  past  life  of  the  Bendas.  They  were  said 
to  have  been  very  rich  once,  to  have  lost  their  money  in  the 
great  panic,  and  to  be  living  at  present  in  quite  moderate  circum- 
stances. Benda's  father  was  said  to  have  shot  himself,  and  his 
mother  was  reported  to  have  taken  the  boy  to  school  every  morn- 
ing. Solicitor  Korn  had  been  told  that,  despite  his  youth,  Dr. 
Benda  had  written  a  number  of  scientific  books  on  biology,  but 
that  this  had  not  enabled  him  to  reach  his  desired  goal. 

"What  goal?"  the  table  companions  asked  in   unison. 

"Why,  he  wanted  to  be  made  a  professor,  but  people  had 
objected."  Why  had  they  objected?  came  the  question  from  more 
than  one  throat.  "Well,  you  see  it  was  this  way:  the  man  is  a 
Jew,  and  the  authorities  are  not  going  to  appoint  a  Jew  to  an  offi- 
cial position  in  a  university  without  raising  objections.  That  is 
to  be  taken  as  a  matter  of  course."  That  this  was  in  very  truth 
to  be  taken  as  a  matter  of  course  was  also  the  opinion  of  Herr 
Carovius,  who,  however,  insisted  that  Benda  didn't  exactly  look 
like  a  Jew;  he  looked  more  like  a  tolerably  fat  Dutchman.  He 


THE  NERO  OF  TO-DAY  51 

was  in  truth  not  quite  blond,  but  he  was  not  dark  either,  and  his 
nose  was  as  straight  as  a  rule. 

"That  is  just  the  point:  that's  the  Jewish  trick,"  remarked  the 
Judge,  and  took  a  mighty  draught  from  his  beer  glass.  "In  olden 
times,"  he  said,  "the  Jews  all  had  the  yellow  spots,  aquiline  noses, 
and  hair  like  bushmen.  But  to-day  no  Christian  can  be  certain 
who  is  Jew  and  who  is  Gentile."  To  this  the  whole  table  agreed. 

Herr  Carovius  at  once  began  a  system  of  espionage.  He  studied 
the  faces  of  the  new  tenants,  and  was  particularly  careful  to  note 
when  they  went  out  and  when  they  came  in  and  with  whom  they 
associated.  He  knew  precisely  when  they  turned  the  lights  out 
at  night  and  when  they  opened  the  windows  in  the  morning.  He 
could  tell  exactly  how  many  rugs  they  had,  how  much  coal  they 
burned,  how  much  meat  they  ate,  how  many  letters  they  received, 
what  walks  they  preferred,  what  people  they  spoke  to,  and  who 
recognised  them.  As  if  this  were  not  enough,  he  went  down  to 
the  bookstore,  bought  the  complete  works  of  Dr.  Benda,  and  read 
these  heavy  scientific  treatises  in  the  sweat  of  his  brow.  He  was 
annoyed  at  the  thought  that  they  had  not  been  critically  reviewed. 
He  would  have  embraced  any  one  who  would  have  told  him  that 
they  were  all  perfectly  worthless  compilations. 

One  evening,  along  towards  spring,  he  chanced  to  go  into  the 
backyard  to  feed  Csesar.  He  looked  up,  and  saw  Marguerite 
standing  on  the  balcony.  She  did  not  see  him,  for  she  was  also 
looking  up.  On  the  balcony  of  the  second  floor,  across  the  court 
from  her,  stood  Friedrich  Benda,  responding  to  some  mute  signals 
Marguerite  was  giving  him.  Finally  they  both  stopped  and  merely 
looked  at  each  other,  until  Marguerite  caught  sight  of  her  brother, 
when  she  quickly  disappeared  behind  the  glass  door  draped  with 
green  curtains. 

"Aha,"  thought  Carovius,  "there's  something  up."  The  scene 
warmed  his  very  blood. 

From  that  day  on  he  avoided  the  court.  He  sat  instead  for 
hours  at  a  time  in  a  room  from  which  he  could  look  out  through  a 
crack  and  see  everything  that  was  taking  place  at  the  windows 
and  on  the  balconies.  He  discovered  that  signals  were  being  sent 
from  the  first  floor  up  to  the  second  by  changing  the  position  of 
a  flower  pot  on  the  railing  of  the  balcony,  and  that  these  signals 
were  answered  by  having  a  yellow  cloth  flutter  on  now  a  vertical, 
now  a  horizontal  pole. 

At  times  Marguerite  would  come  out  quite  timidly,  and  look 
up;  at  times  Benda  appeared,  and  stood  for  a  while  at  the  window 


52  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

completely  absorbed,  as  it  seemed,  in  melancholy  thoughts.  Herr 
Carovius  caught  them  together  but  on  one  single  occasion.  He 
opened  the  window  as  quickly  as  he  could,  and  placed  his  ear 
so  that  he  could  hear  what  was  being  said,  but  it  so  happened  that 
over  in  the  adjoining  yard  some  one  was  just  then  nailing  a  box 
together.  As  a  result  of  the  noise  it  was  impossible  for  him  to 
understand  their  remarks. 

Since  that  day  they  exchanged  no  more  signals,  and  never  again 
appeared  on  the  balcony. 

Carovius  rubbed  his  hands  at  the  thought  that  the  majestic 
Andreas  Doderlein  had  after  all  grown  horns.  But  his  joy  waned 
when  he  reflected  that  two  other  people  were  deriving  profit  from 
the  situation.  That  should  not  be;  that  had  to  be  corrected. 

And  so  he  stood  at  times  in  the  evening  out  in  the  narrow  pas- 
sage at  the  entrance  to  his  apartment.  His  bathrobe  fell  down 
over  his  bony  body  in  many  folds.  In  his  right  hand  he  carried 
a  candle.  Thus  equipped,  he  listened  in,  or  rather  into,  the 
stillness  of  the  house. 

At  times  he  would  take  a  dark  lantern,  walk  up  the  stairs  slowly, 
step  by  step,  and  listen,  listen  with  the  greedy  ears  of  a  man 
who  was  determined  to  hear  something.  There  was  something 
in  the  air  that  told  him  of  secret,  and  of  course  illicit,  transac- 
tions. 

Was  it  the  same  medium  through  which  he  learned  of  the 
weakening  of  Marguerite's  mind  and  the  beclouding  of  her  soul? 
Was  it  this  that  told  him  of  her  mental  anxiety  and  the  ever 
growing  delusion  of  her  terrified  and  broken  heart? 

Later  he  learned  of  her  mad  outbursts  of  anxiety  concerning 
the  life  of  her  child.  He  heard  that  she  would  never  allow  the 
child  out  of  her  sight;  that  she  regarded  the  natural  warmth  of 
her  body  as  a  high  fever;  that  every  morning  she  would  stand  by 
Dorothea's  bed,  weep,  take  her  in  her  arms,  feel  her  pulse,  and 
wrap  her  body  in  warm  clothing.  He  heard,  too,  that  night  after 
night  she  sat  by  the  child's  bedside  watching  over  her  and  pray- 
ing for  her,  while  the  child  herself  slept  like  an  old  shoe.  All 
this  he  learned  from  the  maid. 

One  day  Herr  Carovius  came  home,  and  found  an  ambulance 
and  a  crowd  of  gaping  people  before  the  house.  As  he  went  up 
the  stairway  he  heard  a  hushed  whimpering.  Marguerite  was 
being  dragged  from  the  house  by  two  men.  The  rear  of  this 
procession  was  brought  up  by  Andreas  Doderlein,  on  whose  face 
there  was  an  expression  of  accusation.  The  room  door  was  open. 


THE  NERO  OF  TO-DAY  53 

He  looked  in,  and  saw  bits  of  broken  glasses  and  dishes,  and  in 
the  midst  of  the  debris  sat  Dorothea.  Her  mouth  was  puckered 
as  if  just  on  the  point  of  weeping,  and  a  cloth  was  bound  about 
her  forehead.  The  maid  stood  in  the  door  wringing  her  hands. 
And  on  a  step  above  was  Friedrich  Benda,  white  as  a  sheet,  and 
evidently  suffering  from  great  mental  anxiety. 

Marguerite  offered  but  little  resistance.  She  looked  behind  her, 
and  tried  to  see  what  the  child  was  doing.  Herr  Carovius  buried 
his  hands  in  his  overcoat  pockets,  and  followed  the  mournful 
caravan  out  on  to  the  street.  The  poor  woman  was  taken  to  the 
insane  asylum  at  Erlangen. 

Herr  Carovius  said  to  himself:  somebody  is  responsible  for  all 
this.  He  determined  at  once  to  bring  the  guilty  party  to  account. 
He  took  this  stand  neither  out  of  grief  nor  from  a  feeling  of 
love  for  his  fellow  men.  His  action  was  motivated  by  his  hatred 
of  a  world  in  which  something  is  constantly  going  on,  and  in 
the  midst  of  which  he  was  condemned  to  an  inactive  and  deedless 
life. 


Not  much  could  be  learned  from  Doderlein's  maid.  The  efforts 
to  draw  something  out  of  little  Dorothea  were  also  fruitless.  She 
was  wrapped  up  in  her  own  affairs.  She  arranged  her  ribbons, 
played  with  her  toys,  recounted  the  small  incidents  of  her  un- 
eventful life,  and  could  hardly  be  persuaded  even  to  listen  to  the 
ingenious  questions  Carovius  put  to  her  when  he  stopped  her  out 
in  the  hall  and  asked  her  about  this  and  that. 

One  day  he  went  over  to  Erlangen  to  visit  his  sister  in  the 
insane  asylum.  He  thought  that  he  might  be  able  to  get  some 
clue  to  this  mystery  from  her. 

He  found  her  sitting  in  the  corner  of  a  room,  stroking  her 
long,  yellowish  hair.  Her  head  was  bowed;  her  eyes  were  fixed 
on  the  floor.  Through  no  cunning  that  he  could  devise  was  it 
possible  to  entice  a  single  statement  from  her. 

The  physician  said:  "She  is  a  harmless  patient,  but  most  secre- 
tive and  passionate.  She  must  have  suffered  for  years  from  some 
heavy  burden  on  her  soul." 

Herr  Carovius  left  her,  and  went  back  to  the  station.  The 
sun  was  shining  bright.  He  soon  saw  to  his  infinite  discomfort 
that  it  was  impossible  to  eliminate  the  picture  of  the  melancholy 
woman  from  his  inner  eye.  He  went  into  a  cafe  and  drank  some 


54  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

whiskey.  On  the  return  journey  an  old  woman  sat  opposite  him 
who  seemed  to  understand  him.  There  was  a  trace  of  compassion 
in  her  eyes.  This  made  him  so  uneasy  that  he  found  it  necessary 
to  change  his  seat. 

He  had  met  with  unanticipated  difficulties  in  his  investiga- 
tion. He  recognised  these  fully,  but  consoled  himself  with  the 
thought  that  there  was  still  time.  It  occurred  to  him  that  he 
might  somehow  get  hold  of  Dr.  Benda  and  cross-question  him.  He 
recalled  having  seen  Friedrich  Benda  meet  little  Dorothea  on  the 
stairway  once,  and  no  sooner  had  be  seen  her  coming  than  he  made 
every  effort  to  avoid  her.  That  set  Carovius  to  thinking. 

Some  gas  pipes  had  to  be  installed  in  the  apartment  about 
that  time,  and  this  gave  him,  as  superintendent,  a  splendid  op- 
portunity to  go  up  and  see  Benda.  The  doctor  was  just  then 
making  his  final  attempt  to  claim  his  rights — the  rights  of  a  man 
and  a  scholar — against  the  conspiracy  of  enemies  who  were  really 
immune  before  the  law. 

He  was  all  alone  when  Carovius  called.  He  took  him  straight 
to  his  study.  The  walls  of  his  hall  as  well  as  those  of  his  room 
were  covered  with  books  from  floor  to  ceiling.  Benda  said  he 
was  just  getting  ready  to  go  on  an  extended  journey.  The  finished 
politeness  with  which  he  removed  the  books  from  a  chair  and  the 
tense  way  in  which  he  eyed  Herr  Carovius  made  it  clear  to  the 
latter  that  this  was  neither  the  time  nor  the  place  to  engage  in  mock 
conversation.  Carovius  talked  gas  pipes.  Benda  finished  all  he  had 
to  say  on  this  subject  in  two  short,  crisp  sentences  and  got  up  to 
go. 

Herr  Carovius  got  up  too,  removed  his  nose  glasses,  and  rubbed 
them  with  his  bright  blue  handkerchief.  "Where  are  you  going,  if 
I  may  ask?"  There  was  an  expression  of  apparent  sympathy  in  his 
question. 

Benda  made  it  a  habit  never  to  treat  any  man  impolitely,  how- 
ever little  regard  he  might  have  for  him  personally.  He  said  that 
he  was  going  to  Kiel  to  deliver  his  trial  lecture  at  the  university. 

"Bravo!"  cried  Carovius,  falling  at  once  into  the  tone  of  awk- 
ward familiarity.  "You  have  simply  got  to  show  those  fellows 
that  you  are  not  a  coward.  Bravo!" 

"I  don't  quite  understand  you,"  said  Benda  in  amazement.  His 
antipathy  for  the  man  was  growing.  And  no  one  recognised  this 
better  than  Carovius  himself. 

He  cast  a  sideglance  that  reeked  with  hypocrisy  at  the  young 
scholar.  "My  dear  doctor,  you  must  not  look  upon  me  as  a  poor 


THE  NERO  OF  TO-DAY  55 

uncultured  yokel,"  he  said,  "ancA'  to  sono  pittore.  I  have  read, 
among  other  things,  your  monograph  on  the  morphogenetic  achieve- 
ments of  the  original  sulcate  cell.  Listen,  man!  I  take  off 
my  hat  to  that  book.  Of  course,  it  is  not  exactly  original,  but 
then  it  is  one  of  your  earlier  works.  The  idea  developed  in  it 
follows  pretty  closely  that  of  the  evolutionary  and  mechanical 
theories  of  the  much  slandered  Wilhelm  Roux.  And  yet  I  am 
bound  to  say  you  display  considerable  independence  in  your 
method.  Indeed  you  do.  And  more  than  that,  you  throw  much 
needed  light  on  the  mysteries  of  God  himself.  There  is  a  good 
deal  of  incoherent  drivel  these  days  about  the  freedom  of  science. 
Well,  you'll  have  to  show  me  where  it  is.  Scientists?  They 
are  a  lot  of  conceited  pin-heads,  each  working  for  himself,  and 
incurably  jealous  of  what  his  colleagues  are  doing.  Up  and  at  'em, 
Doctor,  that's  my  advice,  and  luck  to  you!" 

Benda  was  amazed  to  hear  Carovius  mention  a  work  that  was 
otherwise  known  only  to  specialists.  This  however  merely  tended 
to  increase  his  distrust.  He  knew  too  much  about  the  man  to 
stand  before  him  without  a  feeling  of  hostility.  He  merely 
needed  to  call  to  mind  the  story  of  the  woman  whose  youth  he 
had  made  into  a  waste  place  and  a  prison  to  be  made  aware  of  the 
fact  that  it  was  quite  impossible  to  stand  in  his  presence  and 
breathe  easily.  The  air  of  the  room  in  which  Carovius  chanced 
to  be  was  heavy,  stuffy,  depressing. 

Benda's  bearing,  however,  remained  unchanged.  He  replied  in 
a  serious  tone:  "It  is  not  after  all  easy  to  get  along  with  people. 
Each  has  his  own  place  and  wants  to  keep  it.  I  thank  you  very 
much  for  your  visit  and  your  kind  words,  but  my  time  is  limited. 
I  have  a  great  deal  to  do-—" 

"Oh,  certainly,"  said  Carovius  hastily,  while  a  rancorous  grin 
flitted  across  his  face,  "but  you  don't  need  to  drive  me  away. 
I  am  going  on  my  own  accord.  I  have  an  engagement  at  the 
district  court  at  five  o'clock.  I  am  to  sign  some  sort  of  a  document 
concerning  the  detention  of  my  sister  in  the  insane  asylum.  It 
probably  has  to  do  with  the  settling  of  her  estate  or  something 
like  that.  Who  knows?  By  the  way,  what  have  you  to  say 
about  the  affair?  You  knew  her  rather  intimately.  No  hedging, 
doctor.  There  she  sits  in  the  cell  and  combs  her  hair.  Can  you 
imagine  who  is  responsible?  You  know  a  woman  doesn't  lose 
her  mind  from  a  mere  love  affair.  And  this  music  swindler  down 
stairs— it  is  impossible  to  get  him  to  show  his  true  colours.  Yes, 
we  all  have  our  troubles." 


56  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

In  order  to  take  the  sting  out  of  his  impudent  insinuations, 
for  he  regretted  having  made  a  premature  move  with  his  trump 
card,  Carovius  smiled  in  a  scurrilous  fashion,  ducked  his  head, 
coward  that  he  was,  and  riveted  his  greedy,  banal  eyes  on  Benda. 

But  Benda  was  looking  down.  His  eyes  had  been  attracted 
by  the  fancy  buckle  shoes  of  Herr  Carovius.  He  was  repelled 
by  the  man's  foppish  socks  with  the  yellow  stripes  which  were 
made  more  conspicuous  by  the  fact  that  his  trousers  were  too  high. 
He  had  a  feeling  of  unmitigated  mental  nausea,  too,  when  he 
noticed  how  Carovius  lifted  first  one  foot  and  then  the  other  from 
the  floor,  and  then  set  it  down,  heel  first.  It  was  a  detestable 
habit;  and  indulging  in  it  made  an  ugly  noise. 


Benda's  absence  lasted  for  hardly  a  year.  His  mother  had  not 
accompanied  him  this  time.  She  was  not  feeling  well,  and  there 
was  some  danger  that  she  was  losing  her  eyesight. 

After  his  return  he  took  to  silent  brooding.  Though  he  never 
said  a  word  to  his  mother  about  the  disappointment  he  had  ex- 
perienced, she  knew  precisely  what  he  had  gone  through,  and 
spared  him  the  humiliation  that  would  have  followed  any  ques- 
tions she  might  have  asked. 

He  was  oppressed  by  the  memories  the  house  awakened  in  him. 
Forgotten  pictures  became  living  ones.  The  figure  of  the  murdered 
woman  appeared  in  the  nighttime  on  the  balcony.  Her  shadow 
fell  upon  him,  nestled  up  to  him  in  fact,  as  he  sat  at  his  writ- 
ing-desk. 

There  were  a  great  many  things  that  still  bound  him  to  her 
whose  spirit  had  vanished  from  the  earth,  though  her  body  re- 
mained. 

It  was  impossible  for  him  to  forget  her  gentle  look  or  the 
coyness  of  her  hands.  He  knew  her  fate;  he  knew  her  soul. 
But  he  was  condemned  to  silence.  To  withdraw  from  contact 
with  the  world  and  into  the  deepest  of  loneliness  had  been  her 
lot;  it  had  also  been  his.  At  present  it  was  possible  to  get  only 
one  picture  of  her,  the  one  her  brother  had  given:  she  sat  in  her 
cell  and  combed  her  yellow  hair. 

He  held  no  one  responsible;  he  blamed  no  one.  He  merely 
regretted  that  men  are  as  they  are. 

A  former  university  friend  of  his  came  in,  and  tried  to  get 
him  interested  in  collaborating  on  a  great  scientific  work.  He 


THE  NERO  OF  TO-DAY  57 

declined.  As  soon  as  his  colleague  of  other  days  had  gone,  he  vis- 
ualised to  himself  the  entire  conversation:  The  man  was  affable 
and  insistent;  and  yet  there  was  in  his  very  being  an  underground, 
enigmatic  hostility.  It  was  the  hostility  he  invariably  felt  when- 
ever he  had  anything  to  do,  either  of  a  purely  external,  business 
nature  or  in  a  social  way,  with  men  of  other  faith.  The  least 
he  had  to  fear  was  a  prejudiced  inimicality,  as  if  the  individual 
in  question  were  on  the  point  of  calling  out  to  him:  You  stay 
on  that  side,  I'll  stay  on  this.  Keep  off  the  bridge. 

He  was  fully  aware  of  this,  but  his  pride  forbade  his  fighting 
against  it.  He  renounced  his  natural  right  to  life  and  a  living. 
He  declined  the  university  conceded  privilege  of  co-existence. 
To  go  out  and  actually  win  for  himself  the  right  to  participate 
in  the  inevitable  contest  of  forces,  or  to  secure  even  this  poor 
privilege  by  supplication,  or  to  defend  it  by  argument,  or  to  cajole 
it  into  his  possession  by  political  wiles,  seemed  to  him  contrary 
to  reason  and  at  odds  with  common  sense.  He  would  not  do  it. 

He  refused  to  knock  at  the  door  which  he  himself  had  bolted 
and  barricaded. 

From  this  self-imposed  embarrassment  he  suffered  to  an  almost 
intolerable  degree.  It  was  the  irrational  and  fraudulent  phase 
of  matters  that  made  him  suffer.  Did  men  act  as  they  did  because 
they  were  so  strong  in  their  faith?  Not  at  all.  Did  he  believe 
in  those  racial  differences  which  made  them  believe?  Not  at 
all.  He  felt  at  home  on  the  soil  that  nourished  him;  he  felt 
under  obligations  to  the  weal  and  woe  of  his  people;  he  was 
bound  heart  and  soul  to  the  best  of  them,  and  realised  that  he  had 
been  spiritually  developed  by  their  language,  ideas,  and  ideals. 

Everything  else  was  a  lie.  They  knew  that  it  was  a  lie  too, 
but  out  of  his  pride  they  forged  a  weapon  and  turned  it  against 
him.  To  deny  his  relationship  to  them,  a  relationship  that  had 
been  proved  by  his  achievements  and  enthusiasm,  was  a  part  of 
their  plan;  it  was  also  a  part  of  their  evil  designs. 

To  strike  up  acquaintances,  seek  out  congenial  companions,  or 
take  an  active  part  in  social  organisations  was  repulsive  to  him. 
He  did  not  care  to  be  dragged  into  fruitless  and  empty  community 
of  effort  or  social  co-operation.  Defiant  and  alone,  he  explained 
his  case  to  himself.  Since  it  merely  intensified  his  agony  to 
compare  his  lot  with  that  of  others  who  seemed  to  be  similiarly 
situated,  he  did  not  do  it.  He  avoided  in  truth  all  reflections  that 
might  have  made  the  world  appear  to  him  as  having  at  least  a  sem- 
blance of  justice. 


58  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

He  was  consequently  filled  with  a  longing  which  took  more 
definite  shape  day  by  day,  and  finally  developed  into  a  positive 
and  irrevocable  decision. 

About  this  time  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  Daniel,  and 
through  him  he  came  to  know  other  people.  He  saw  at  once  that 
there  was  something  unusual  about  Daniel;  that  there  was  some- 
thing in  him  which  he  had  never  before  noticed  in  any  one.  Even 
his  outer  distress  was  a  challenge  to  greater  activity,  while  his 
inner  agitation  never  permitted  his  associates  to  rest  in  idle  peace. 

It  was  not  easy  to  be  of  assistance  to  him;  he  rejected  all 
gifts  which  he  could  not  repay.  He  had  to  be  convinced  first 
of  his  duty  and  indebtedness  to  the  friend  whom  fate  had  made 
cross  his  path.  And  even  then  he  stood  out  for  the  privilege  of 
being  theoretically  ungrateful. 

Benda  and  his  mother  succeeded  in  getting  him  a  position 
as  a  tutor  in  some  private  families.  He  had  to  give  piano  lessons 
to  young  boys  and  girls.  The  compensation  was  not  great,  but 
it  at  least  helped  him  out  for  the  time  being. 

After  the  day's  work  was  done,  the  evenings  and  nights  bound 
the  two  more  and  more  firmly  together. 

VII 

One  evening  Daniel  entered  the  house  and  met  Herr  Carovius. 
But  he  was  so  absorbed  in  thought  that  he  passed  by  without 
noticing  him.  Carovius  looked  at  him  angrily,  and  walked  back 
to  the  hall  to  see  where  the  young  man  was  going.  When  he 
heard  him  ring  the  bell  on  the  second  floor,  an  uneasy  expression 
came  over  his  face.  He  rubbed  his  chin  with  his  left  hand. 

"The  idea  of  passing  by  me  as  though  I  were  a  block  of  wood," 
murmured  Carovius  spitefully.  "Just  wait,  young  man,  I'll  make 
you  pay  for  that." 

Instead  of  leaving  the  house  as  he  had  wished,  Carovius  went 
into  his  apartment,  lighted  a  candle,  and  tripped  hastily  through 
three  rooms,  in  which  there  were  old  cabinets  and  trunks  filled 
with  books  and  music  scores.  There  was  also  a  piano  in  one.  He 
then  took  a  key  from  his  pocket,  and  unlocked  a  fourth  room, 
which  had  closed  shades  and  was  in  fact  otherwise  quite  oddly 
arranged. 

He  went  to  a  table  which  reached  almost  the  full  length  of  the 
room,  picked  up  a  piece  of  white  paper,  sat  down,  and  wrote  with 
red  ink:  "Daniel  Nothafft.  Musician.  Two  months  in  jail." 


THE  NERO  OF  TO-DAY  59 

He  then  covered  the  paper  with  mucilage,  pasted  it  on  a 
wooden  box  which  looked  like  a  miniature  sentry-house,  and  nailed 
a  lid  on  the  box,  using  tacks  that  were  lying  ready  for  this  pur- 
pose. 

There  were  at  least  five  dozen  such  boxes  on  the  long  table,  the 
majority  of  which  had  names  attached  to  them  and  had  been 
nailed  up. 

The  closed  room  Herr  Carovius  called  his  court  chamber.  What 
he  did  in  it  he  termed  the  regulation  of  his  affairs  with  humanity, 
and  the  collection  of  little  wooden  cells  he  called  his  jail.  Every 
individual  who  had  oiTcnded,  hurt,  humiliated,  or  defrauded  him 
was  assigned  such  a  keep  in  which  he  was  obliged  to  languish, 
figuratively,  until  his  time,  determined  by  a  formal  sentence,  was 
up. 

Nor  was  this  all.  In  the  middle  section  of  the  table  there 
were  a  number  of  diminutive  sand  heaps,  about  thirty  in  all,  and 
on  each  one  was  a  small  wooden  cross  and  on  each  cross  was  a 
name.  That  was  Herr  Carovius's  cemetery,  and  those  who  were 
figuratively  buried  there  were,  so  far  as  he  was  concerned,  dead, 
even  though  they  were  still  going  about  their  earthly  affairs  as 
lively  and  cheerful  as  ever.  They  were  people  whose  mundane 
careers  were  finished,  as  he  saw  it,  and  under  each  of  their  accounts, 
reckoned  exclusively  in  sins,  he  had  drawn  a  heavy  line.  They 
were  such  people  as  Richard  Wagner  and  his  champions,  the  local 
stationer  to  whom  he  had  advanced  some  money  years  ago  and 
who  entered  a  plea  of  bankruptcy  a  few  months  later,  the  authors 
of  bad  books  that  were  widely  read,  or  of  books  which  he  loathed 
without  having  read  them,  as,  for  instance,  those  of  Zola. 

There  were  still  a  third  noteworthy  section  of  the  table,  and 
that  was  the  so-called  Academy.  This  consisted  of  a  plot  of 
ground,  surrounded  by  an  iron  fence,  and  divided  up  into  twelve 
or  fifteen  square  fields,  each  of  which  was  painted  in  fresh  green. 
In  the  middle  of  each  field  there  was  a  wooden  peg  about  two 
inches  high,  and  to  the  middle  of  each  peg  there  was  attached  a 
name-plate.  From  the  tops  of  some  of  these  pegs  little  banners 
of  green  cloth  fluttered  in  the  breeze. 

The  fact  is,  Herr  Carovius  had  a  weakness  for  association  with 
aristocrats.  In  his  heart  of  hearts  he  admired  the  manners  of  the 
aristocracy,  their  indifference  and  self-complacency,  their  irrefra- 
gable traditions  and  their  noiseless  and  harmonious  behaviour.  To 
the  pegs  of  the  Academy  he  had  affixed  the  names  of  some  of 
the  best  families  he  had  known;  among  others,  those  of  the  Tuchers, 


6o  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

the  Hallers,  the  Humbsers,  the  Kramer-Kleets,  and  the  Auffen- 
bergs.  Whenever  he  had  succeeded  in  making  the  personal  ac- 
quaintance of  the  members  of  any  of  these  families,  he  went 
straightway  to  the  Academy  and  hoisted  the  appropriate  flag. 

But,  despite  all  his  effort,  he  had  never  in  the  course  of  time 
been  able  to  run  up  more  than  three  flags,  and  these  only  for  a 
brief  period  and  without  any  marked  success.  Some  one  had 
recognised  him  on  the  street  or  spoken  to  him  at  the  concert,  and 
that  was  all.  The  Academy  looked,  in  contradistinction  to  the 
jail  and  the  cemetery,  quite  deserted.  Finally  he  was  able  tc 
hoist  the  Auffenberg  banner.  Herr  Carovius  felt  that  the  Academy 
had  a  great  future. 

VIII 

Kropotkin  the  painter  had  once  upon  a  time  received  an  order 
to  make  a  copy  of  a  Holbein  for  Baron  Siegmund  von  Auffenberg. 
He  never  finished  the  picture,  owing  to  lack  of  ability;  but  he 
had  become  acquainted  with  Baron  Eberhard,  and  years  later, 
having  met  him  quite  accidentally,  took  him  to  the  Paradise,  where 
the  infamous  brethren  were  then  in  the  habit  of  gathering. 

Eberhard's  appearance  at  the  Paradise  was  short-lived;  he  dis- 
appeared in  fact  as  quickly  as  he  had  appeared.  But  this  brief 
space  was  sufficient  for  Herr  Carovius  to  become  intimately  ac- 
quainted with  himj 

The  first  time  he  sat  at  the  same  table  with  him  he  was 
noticeably  excited.  His  face  shone  with  a  mild  spiritual  glow. 
His  voice  was  sweet  and  gentle,  his  remarks  of  an  unusually  agree- 
able moderation. 

He  turned  the  conversation  to  a  discussion  of  the  superiorities 
of  birth,  and  lauded  the  distinction  of  the  hereditary  classes.  He 
said  it  was  from  them  only  that  the  people  could  acquire  civic 
virtue.  The  brethren  scorned  his  point  of  view.  Herr  Carovius 
came  back  at  them  with  an  annihilating  jest. 

During  the  rendition  of  this  hallelujah-solo  in  praise  of  the 
nobility,  Eberhard  von  Auffenberg  intrenched  himself  behind  a 
sullen  silence.  And  though  Carovius  used  every  available  opportu- 
nity from  then  on  to  flatter  the  young  nobleman  in  his  cunning, 
crafty  way,  he  failed.  The  most  he  could  do  was  to  inspire 
Eberhard  to  lift  his  thrush-bearded  chin  in  the  air  and  make  some 
sarcastic  remark.  Fawn  as  he  might,  Carovius  was  stumped  at 
every  turn. 


THE  NERO  OF  TO-DAY  61 

One  night,  however,  the  two  enjoyed  each  other's  company  on 
the  way  home.  That  is,  Carovius  never  left  Eberhard  s  side. 
Annoyed  at  the  failure  of  his  former  tactics,  he  thought  he  would 
try  his  luck  in  another  way:  he  ridiculed  the  arrogance  of  a  certain 
caste  which  affected  to  attach  less  importance  to  a  man  like  himself 
than  to  some  jackanapes  whose  handkerchief  was  adorned  with 
an  embroidered  crown. 

"What  are  you,  any  way,  what  is  your  vocation?"  asked  Eber- 
hard von  Auffenberg. 

"I  don't  do  anything,"  replied  Carovius. 

"Nothing  at  all?      That  is  quite  agreeable." 

"Oh,  I  do  work  a  little  at  music,"  added  Herr  Carovius,  entirely 
pleased  at  the  curiosity  of  the  Baron. 

"Now,  you  see,  that  is  after  all  something,"  said  the  Baron. 
"I  for  my  part  am  as  unmusical  as  a  shot-gun.  And  if  you  do 
not  do  anything  but  interest  yourself  in  music,  you  must  have  a 
great  deal  of  money." 

Herr  Carovius  turned  away.  The  positive  dread  of  being 
taken  for  a  rich  man  wrestled  with  the  vain  desire  to  make  the 
young  Baron  feel  that  he  really  was  somebody.  "I  have  a  little," 
he  remarked  with  a  titter,  "a  little." 

"Very  well;  if  you  will  loan  me  ten  thousand  marks,  it  will 
give  me  great  pleasure  to  make  you  a  present  of  the  crown  on  my 
handkerchief,"  said  Eberhard  von  Auffenberg. 

Herr  Carovius  stopped  stock  still,  and  opened  his  mouth  and  his 
eyes:  "Baron,  you  are  taking  the  liberty  of  jesting  with  me." 
But  when  Eberhard  indicated  that  he  was  quite  serious,  Carovius 
continued,  blank  amazement  forcing  his  voice  to  its  highest  pitch: 
"But  my  dear  Sir,  your  father  has  an  income  of  half  a  million. 
A  mere  income!  The  tax  receipts  show  it." 

"Well,  I  am  not  talking  about  my  father,"  said  Eberhard 
coldly,  and  once  more  threw  his  chin  in  the  air.  "It  is  evidently 
a  part  of  your  heraldic  prejudices  to  feel  that  you  can  coax  the 
income  of  my  father  into  my  own  pockets." 

They  were  standing  under  a  gas  lamp  at  the  Hallcr  Gate. 
It  was  dripping  rain,  and  they  had  raised  their  umbrellas.  It 
was  perfectly  still;  it  was  also  late.  Not  a  human  being  was  to 
be  seen  anywhere.  Carovius  looked  at  the  seriously  offended  young 
man,  the  young  man  looked  at  Carovius,  then  grinning  a  grin  of 
embarrassment,  and  neither  knew  how  to  take  the  other. 

"You  are  surprised,"  said  Eberhard,  resuming  the  conversation. 
"You  are  surprised,  and  I  don't  blame  you.  1  am  a  discontented 


62  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

guest  in  my  own  skin;  that  much  I  can  assure  you.  I  am  as 
abortive  a  creature  as  ever  was  born.  I  inherited  far  too  much 
that  is  superfluous,  and  not  nearly  enough  of  the  necessities. 
There  are  all  manner  of  mysteries  about  me;  but  they  are  on  the 
outside.  Within  there  is  nothing  but  stale,  dead  air." 

He  stared  at  the  ground  as  though  he  were  talking  to  himself, 
and  as  though  he  had  forgotten  that  any  one  was  listening,  and 
continued:  "Have  you  ever  seen  old  knights  carved  in  stone 
in  old  churches?  If  you  have,  you  have  seen  me.  I  feel  as 
if  I  were  the  father  of  my  father,  and  as  if  he  had  had  me  buried 
alive,  and  an  evil  spirit  had  turned  me  to  stone,  and  my  hands 
were  lying  crossed  over  my  breast  and  could  not  move.  I  grew 
up  with  a  sister,  and  I  see  her  as  though  it  were  yesterday" — at 
this  point  his  face  took  on  an  expression  of  fantastic  senility — 
"walking  through  the  hall,  proud,  dainty,  innocent,  with  roses 
in  her  hand.  She  is  married  to  a  captain  of  cavalry,  a  fellow 
who  treats  his  men  like  Negro  slaves,  and  who  never  returns  the 
greeting  of  a  civilian  unless  he  is  drunk.  She  had  to  marry  him. 
I  could  not  prevent  it.  Somebody  forced  her  into  it.  And  if 
she  is  carrying  roses  now,  it  is  as  if  a  corpse  were  singing  songs." 

Herr  Carovius  felt  most  uneasy.  He  was  not  accustomed  to 
hearing  things  like  this.  Where  he  lived  people  called  a  spade  a 
spade.  He  pricked  up  his  ears  and  made  a  wry  face.  "It  is  the 
way  he  has  been  trained  that  makes  him  talk  like  that,"  he 
thought;  "it  is  the  result  of  constantly  sitting  on  gold-embroidered 
chairs  and  seeing  nothing  about  him  but  paintings." 

"I  am  going  to  sit  on  such  chairs  too,"  he  was  happy  to  think, 
"and  I  shall  see  the  paintings,  too."  He  pictured  himself  between 
the  Baron  and  the  Baroness,  marching  up  to  the  portals  of  the  castle, 
flanked  on  either  side  by  a  row  of  liveried  servants,  the  nervous 
masses  catching  sight  of  the  splendour  as  well  as  they  might.  The 
rear  of  this  procession  was  being  brought  up  by  the  young  Baron, 
who  had  returned  home  as  the  penitent  Prodigal  Son. 

"One  must  have  a  feeling  of  personal  security,"  remarked 
Carovius.  He  wondered  whether  the  Baron  had  reached  his 
majority.  Eberhard  replied  that  he  had  just  completed  his  twen- 
ty-first year,  and  that  certain  things  had  made  him  feel  that  it 
would  be  wise  to  live  independent  of  his  family  and  to  renounce 
his  claims  to  all  family  rights  for  the  time  being.  What  he 
really  had  in  mind  was  the  desire  to  avoid,  so  far  as  humanly 
possible,  association  with  all  professional  money-lenders. 

Herr    Carovius    felt    that    this   was    an    extremely    serious    CMC.. 


THE  NERO  OF  TO-DAY  63 

He  claimed  moreover  to  understand  it  perfectly  and  to  be  ready 
for  anything,  but  insisted  that  nothing  must  be  withheld,  that  he 
must  be  given  undiluted  wine.  He  made  this  remark  just  a« 
if  he  were  holding  a  glass  of  old  Johannisberger  out  in  the  rain, 
sniffing  as  he  did  with  appreciative  nostrils. 

"I  am  very  discreet,"  he  said,  "very  taciturn."  He  looked  at 
the  Baron  tenderly. 

The  young  Baron  nodded. 

"The  wearer  of  purple  is  recognised  wherever  he  goes,"  con- 
tinued Herr  Carovius,  "and  if  he  lays  the  purple  aside  he  stands 
at  once  in  need  of  reticent  friends.  I  am  reserved." 

The  Baron  nodded  again.  "If  you  will  permit  me,  I  shall  visit 
you  in  a  few  days."  With  that  he  ended  the  conversation. 

He  started  off  toward  the  Avenue,  walking  stiffly.  It  was 
not  hard  to  see  that  he  was  ill  at  ease.  Herr  Carovius  walked 
away  with  mincing,  merry  steps  down  toward  the  small  end  of 
the  alley,  singing  an  aria  from  the  "Barber  of  Seville"  as  he 
went. 

At  the  end  of  the  first  week  he  was  taken  down  with  a  dis- 
concerting suspicion  that  the  Baron  had  made  a  fool  of  him.  He 
was  filled  with  a  wrath  that  had  to  be  cooled.  One  morning, 
just  as  he  was  leaving  his  apartment,  he  saw  two  milk  cans  filled 
with  milk  standing  in  the  outer  hall.  One  was  for  the  first  floor, 
the  other  for  the  second.  The  milkmaid  had  placed  them  there 
for  the  time  being,  and  had  gone  over  to  have  a  little  morning 
chat  with  her  neighbour.  Herr  Carovius  went  to  his  lumber- 
room,  which  also  served  as  the  kitchen,  took  down  a  jug  of  vinegar, 
came  back,  looked  around  with  all  the  caution  he  could  summon, 
and  then  poured  half  of  the  contents  of  the  jug  into  one  can 
and  the  other  half  into  the  other. 

Two  days  later  he  decided  not  to  give  Cresar  anything  to  eat,  so 
that  he  would  terrify  the  neighbours  by  his  howling.  This  worked. 
The  dog  howled  and  whined  and  barked  night  after  night.  It 
was  enough  to  melt  the  heart  of  a  stone.  Nobody  could  sleep. 
Andreas  Doderlein  went  to  the  police,  but  they  told  him  that  the 
caee  was  beyond  their  jurisdiction. 

Herr  Carovius  lay  in  bed  rejoicing  with  exceeding  great  joy 
over  the  fact  that  the  people  could  not  sleep.  He  became  en- 
amoured of  the  idea  that  it  might  be  possible,  through  some  inge- 
nious invention,  to  rob  a  whole  city  or  a  whole  nation  of  its  sleep. 
The  inventor  could  then  move  about  conscious  of  the  fact  that  he 
was  at  once  the  distributor  and  the  destroyer  of  the  world's  supply 


64  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

of  sleep.  If  he  so  elected  to  exploit  his  invention,  he  could 
revel  in  the  sight  of  an  entire  people  pining,  drying  up,  and 
eventually  dying  from  the"  want  of  sleep. 

After  Csesar  had  become  quite  savage,  Herr  Carovius  decided 
to  unleash  him.  It  was  just  after  sunset.  He  slipped  up  to  the 
beast  from  the  rear,  and  opened  the  chain  lock.  The  dog  ran 
like  mad  through  the  court  and  the  hall,  and  out  on  to  the 
street. 

Just  at  this  moment  young  Baron  von  Auffenberg  was  enter- 
ing to  pay  Herr  Carovius  that  promised  visit.  He  jumped  back 
from  the  beast,  but  it  sprang  at  his  body,  and  in  a  jiffy  the  Baron 
was  lying  full  length  on  the  pavement.  Cassar  left  him,  made  a 
straight  line  for  the  open  door  of  a  butcher  shop  across  the  street, 
sprang  in,  and  snatched  a  fancy  cut  from  one  of  the  hooks. 

In  order  to  see  just  how  much  damage  the  dog  would  really  do, 
Herr  Carovius  ran  after  him,  hypocritically  feigning  as  he  ran 
an  expression  of  horror,  and  acting  as  though  the  beast  had  some- 
how broken  his  chain  and  got  loose.  The  first  sight  that  caught 
his  eyes  was  that  of  the  young  Baron  as  he  rose  to  his  feet  and 
limped  over  toward  his  host  to-be. 

The  horror  of  Herr  Carovius  at  once  became  real.  With  the 
diligence  of  a  seasoned  flunkey,  he  stooped  over,  picked  up  the 
Baron's  hat,  dusted  it,  stammered  all  sorts  of  apologies,  gazed  at 
high  heaven  like  a  martyred  saint,  and  brushed  the  dirt  from  Eb- 
erhard's  trousers.  Then  the  dog  came  back,  a  huge  piece  of  meat 
in  his  mouth.  The  butcher  came  to  the  door  and  shook  his 
fists.  The  butcher's  boy  stuck  two  fingers  in  his  mouth,  and 
whistled  for  the  police.  They  came,  too,  and  Herr  Carovius  had 
to  pay  for  the  meat. 

He  then  took  the  Baron  into  his  living-room,  plying  him  in  the 
meantime  with  innumerable  questions  as  to  how  he  felt.  Having 
been  stunned  by  the  fall,  the  Baron  asked  to  lie  down  for  a  few 
minutes  on  the  couch.  Herr  Carovius  granted  his  wish,  smother- 
ing him  with  sighs  of  affection  and  exclamations  of  regret. 

As  the  Baron  lay  on  the  couch,  trying  to  regain  his  vital  spirits, 
Herr  Carovius  went  to  the  piano  and  played  the  rondo  from 
Weber's  sonata  in  A  flat  major.  His  technique  was  superb;  his 
emotion  was  touching. 

After  the  concert  the  transactions  began. 


INSPECTOR  JORDAN  AND  HIS  CHILDREN 


BENNO  JORDAN  was  now  a  senior  in  the  gymnasium  and  had 
begun  to  play  mischievous  pranks.  He  also  declared  that  he  was 
no  longer  minded  to  tolerate  the  tyranny  of  the  school,  and  that 
he  had  not  the  slightest  desire  to  enter  the  university.  He  was 
a  wilful,  obstinate  boy  with  a  marked  tendency  to  sociability.  He 
paid  a  great  deal  of  attention  to  his  clothes,  and  was  proud  of  his 
handsome  face. 

After  repeated  conversations  with  the  seventeen-year  old  boy, 
Jordan  decided  to  get  him  a  job  as  a  clerk  in  the  offices  of  the 
Prudentia.  He  discussed  the  situation  with  the  general  agent,  and 
Alfons  Diruf  gave  his  consent.  Benno  began  his  work  at  fifty 
marks  a  month. 

When  Jordan  would  come  home  of  an  evening,  the  first  thing 
he  would  hear  from  Eleanore  was  that  Benno  had  an  engagement 
with  some  of  his  friends,  and  that  they  were  in  the  Alfas  Garden, 
or  in  the  Wolf's  Glen,  or  in  Cafe  Merkur,  where  the  orchestrion, 
then  a  new  invention,  was  being  played  for  the  first  time. 

"Lord,  what  is  to  become  of  the  next  generation?"  said  Jordan, 
quite  worried.  "All  they  think  about  is  having  a  good  time. 
Why,  I  never  in  my  whole  life  thought  of  merely  amusing  my- 
self." 

Anxious  about  Benno's  behaviour,  Jordan  called  on  the  chief  of 
the  clerical  department.  The  little  man  with  the  waxened,  weaz- 
ened face  expressed  himself  as  quite  satisfied  with  the  new  em- 
ploye. Jordan  took  him  by  the  hand;  it  was  his  way  of  displaying 
gratitude.  And  he  was  grateful,  though  it  was  hard  for  him  to 
subdue  a  feeling  of  solicitude.  He  recognised  the  boy's  external 
amiability,  but  felt  convinced  that  this  merely  covered  and  con- 
cealed a  decayed  soul. 

Alfons  Diruf  was  obese  and  gloomy.  His  clothes  were  made  in 
Paris,  and  on  the  ring  finger  of  his  left  hand  was  a  brilliant 
diamond. 

Since  the  Prudentia  had  introduced  the  so-called  workmen's 

65 


66  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

insurance,  the  number  of  clerks  on  its  payroll  had  been  increased 
bv  about  twenty-five  thousand.  Of  these  eighty-four  were  under 
Diruf's  direct  supervision.  They  were  located  in  three  rooms 
of  a  house  in  Further  Street.  They  were  pale  and  they  were 
silent.  Diruf  himself  had  a  private  office  which  resembled  the 
boudoirs  of  a  woman  of  the  world.  The  curtains  were  of  blue 
silk,  a  bathing  nymph  by  Thumann  hung  on  the  wall,  and  the 
whole  place  smelled  of  musk. 

Three  times  a  day  he  would  leave  his  fair  retreat,  and,  with 
the  mien  of  disgust,  make  the  rounds  of  the  clerks'  quarters. 
When  they  saw  him  coming,  heads  ducked,  hands  scurried  across 
the  books,  feet  stopped  scraping,  and  all  whispering  died  out. 

He  gave  the  impression  of  a  man  who  hated  his  job,  but  in 
reality  he  loved  it.  He  liked  the  clerks  because  of  their  servile 
docility  and  their  famished  faces.  He  liked  them  because  they 
came  promptly  every  morning  and  went  away  every  evening  tired 
as  tired  could  be,  and  because  day  after  day,  year  in  and  year  out, 
they  sat  there  and  wrote,  wrote,  wrote. 

He  liked  the  inspectors  because  day  after  day,  year  in  and  year 
out,  they  did  a  great  deal  of  work  for  a  very  little  money.  He 
liked  the  agents  and  sub-agents  who  made  it  possible  for  the  com- 
pany to  issue  hundreds  of  new  policies  every  day.  He  liked  their 
dirty  clothes  and  tattered  boots,  their  hungry  looks,  their  mis- 
leading but  effective  line  of  talk,  and  their  sad  faces. 

The  special  bait  of  the  workmen's  insurance  was  the  small 
premium,  carrying  with  it  a  small  policy.  In  this  way  the  man 
of  small  means  was  to  be  educated  in  thrift.  As  a  rule,  however, 
the  small  man  realised,  when  it  was  too  late,  that  the  agent  had 
promised  more  than  the  company  could  do.  He  became  dis- 
trustful; his  weekly  savings  were  so  scant  that  it  was  impossible 
for  him  to  pay  his  premiums  regularly;  with  the  expiration  of 
each  week  it  became  increasingly  difficult  to  make  up  the  back 
payments,  and,  before  he  knew  precisely  what  had  happened,  his 
policy  had  been  declared  void,  and  the  money  he  had  paid  in 
on  it  confiscated. 

In  this  way  the  company  made  millions.  It  was  the  pfennigs 
of  the  poorest  classes  that  constituted  these  millions,  made  the 
dividends  rise  higher  and  higher,  increased  the  army  of  clerks, 
and  filled  the  pockets  of  the  agents. 

These  agents  were  recruited  from  the  scum  of  human  society. 
They  were  made  up  of  bankrupts,  decadent  students,  gamblers, 
topers,  and  beggars.  They  came  from  the  ranks  of  those  who 


INSPECTOR  JORDAN  AND  HIS  CHILDREN      67 

had  been  pursued  by  misfortune  and  who  bore  the  marks  of  crime. 
No  one  was  too  small  or  too  bad. 

Alfons  Diruf,  however,  saw  that  it  would  vastly  improve  the 
credit  of  the  company  if  to  this  list  of  outcasts  he  would  add  a 
few  eminently  respectable  citizens.  He  consequently  went  out 
on  his  own  responsibility,  and  looked  for  help.  His  quest  brought 
him  to  Jason  Philip  Schimmelweis. 

"It's  a  gold  mine,"  he  said;  "you  work  for  an  ideal,  and  you 
get  something  out  of  it  for  yourself.  Ideals,  incidentally,  that 
are  not  profitable  are  idiotic."  With  that  he  blew  the  smoke 
of  his  Havana  cigar  through  his  nose. 

Jason  Philip  understood.  It  was  not  necessary  to  flatter  the 
leader  and  politican  that  was  admittedly  in  him.  He  nearly 
ran  his  legs  off  working  for  the  company.  Alfons  Diruf  loved 
this  socialist  book-keeper,  after  a  fashion. 

Inspector  Jordan  saw  however  that  the  countless  brokers  were 
encroaching  on  his  territory  and  stirring  up  distrust  on  the  part 
of  his  better  clients.  He  lost  his  interest.  The  directors  felt 
obliged  to  send  Alfons  Diruf  a  critical  memorandum  explaining 
Jordan's  case,  and  showing  that  he  was  no  longer  as  efficient  as 
he  used  to  be. 


Daniel  had  grown  tired  of  his  room  in  the  attic  and  the  society 
of  brush-maker  Hadebusch.  He  announced  that  he  was  going  to 
move.  Surrounded  by  a  cloud  of  smells  from  boiled  cabbage, 
Frau  Hadebusch  raged  about  the  ingratitude  of  man.  Her  shrieks 
called  Herr  Franke  and  the  Methodist  from  out  their  warm  holes; 
the  brush-maker  and  his  imbecile  son  also  appeared  in  the  dimly 
lighted  vestibule;  and  before  these  five  Hogarth  figures  stood  the 
defenceless  sinner,  Daniel  Nothafft. 

He  looked  about  in  the  suburbs  of  St.  Mary,  but  found  every- 
thing too  dear.  He  went  out  to  New  Gate,  but  everything  was 
taken.  He  tried  the  St.  John  district,  and  that  pleased  him  best 
of  all.  Late  in  the  afternoon  he  came  to  a  house  in  the  Long 
Row,  at  the  entrance  to  which  hung  a  "To  Let"  sign. 

He  pulled  the  bell  cord,  and  a  beautiful  servant  girl  took  him 
into  a  room.  Through  the  window  he  could  look  out  on  a  garden 
filled  with  old  trees.  A  spinster  came  in,  and  smiled  at  the 
pleasure  he  took  in  the  room  and  the  view. 

"I  must  see  my  sister,"  she  said,  as  he  asked  her  about  the  price. 


68  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

She  called  out  into  the  hall,  and  her  sister,  likewise  an  elderly 
and  kindly  spinster,  came  in.  They  held  a  council,  the  deliber- 
ations of  which  were  conducted  in  muffled  tones,  and  then  agreed 
that  they  would  have  to  consult  Albertina.  She  was  the  third 
sister.  The  first  tip-toed  to  the  door  and,  with  pointed  lips, 
called  the  name,  Albertina,  out  into  the  long  hall  with  as 
much  coyness  as  had  been  employed  in  summoning  the  second 
sister. 

Albertina  was  the  youngest  of  the  three;  she  was  about  forty. 
But  she  had  forgotten,  like  Jasmina  and  Saloma,  to  erase  twenty 
years  from  the  calendar:  all  three  had  preserved  the  youthful 
charm  of  their  girlhood. 

Albertina  blushed  as  she  looked  at  the  young  man,  and  her 
modesty  was  contagious;  the  two  sisters  also  blushed.  She  told 
Daniel  that  they  were  the  Riidiger  sisters.  With  that  she  re- 
mained silent,  and  looked  down  as  though  she  had  divulged  her 
entire  fate.  She  informed  Daniel  that  they  had  decided  to  rent 
the  room  to  some  dependable  young  man,  because  there  had  been 
considerable  petty  thieving  in  the  neighbourhood  of  late  and  they 
would  like  to  enjoy  the  protection  of  a  man,  for  they  were 
entirely  alone,  except  for  the  boy  who  tended  the  garden.  They 
told  him  also  that  they  had  had  several  offers,  but  that  they  had 
declined  them  because  they  did  not  like  the  appearance  of  the 
applicants.  In  affairs  of  this  kind,  indeed  in  everything,  the 
three  sisters  were  always  of  like  mind. 

Fraulein  Saloma  asked  Daniel  what  he  did.  He  replied  that  he 
was  a  musician.  A  chorus  of  surprise  greeted  his  ears,  rendered 
in  perfect  time  by  the  three  female  voices.  Fraulein  Jasmina 
asked  him  whether  he  was  a  singer  or  a  violinist.  He  replied  that 
he  was  neither,  that  he  was  a  composer,  or  that  he  at  least  hoped 
to  become  one.  With  that  an  expression  of  intense  spirituality 
spread  over  the  faces  of  the  sisters,  so  that  they  looked  like 
triplets.  Aha,  a  creative  artist!  "Y-c-s,"  said  Daniel,  "if  you 
wish  to  put  it  that  way:  a  creative  artist." 

They  hopped  into  the  corner  like  so  many  sparrows,  and  went 
into  serious  conference.  Fraulein  Saloma,  as  chairman,  wanted  to 
know  whether  a  monthly  rent  of  twelve  marks  would  be  too  much. 
No,  replied  Daniel,  that  would  not  be  excessive.  He  said  it 
without  giving  the  matter  the  slightest  consideration,  and  then 
shook  hands  with  the  sisters.  Fraulein  Jasmina  added  that  he 
could  use  the  piano  on  the  first  floor  whenever  he  wished  to,  and 
that  it  merely  needed  tuning.  Daniel  shook  her  hand  again,  this 


INSPECTOR  JORDAN  AND  HIS  CHILDREN      69 

time  with  special  warmth.  His  joy  had  awakened  in  him  a 
measure  of  clumsy  familiarity. 

Before  he  left  the  house  he  went  out  into  the  garden,  and 
stood  for  a  while  under  one  of  the  trees.  A  tree  to  myself  at 
last,  he  thought.  Up  in  the  top  a  blackbird  was  singing.  Meta 
the  servant  }ooked  out  from  the  door  where  she  was  standing, 
astonished  at  it  all. 

Fraulein  Albertina  said  to  her  sisters:  "He  seems  like  an  interest- 
ing young  man,  but  he  has  bad  manners." 

"Artists  attach  no  importance  to  externalities,"  replied  Fraulein 
Jasmina  with  knitted  brow. 

"A  great  mistake.  He  always  looked  as  if  he  had  just  come 
out  of  a  bandbox.  You  remember,  don't  you?" 

The  other  two  nodded.  The  three  then  walked  down  the  gar- 
den path,  arm  in  arm. 

in 

Daniel  was  standing  in  the  vegetable  market  before  the  Goose 
Man  Fountain,  eating  apples. 

The  sun  was  shining,  and  he  noticed  that  the  shadow  of  the 
fountain  was  moving  slowly  toward  the  church.  It  made  him  sad 
to  see  that  time  was  passing  and  how  it  was  passing.  When  he 
turned  around,  however,  and  saw  that  the  bronze  figure  of  the 
man  with  the  two  geese  under  his  arms  was  not  merely  indifferent 
to  the  passing  of  time  but  confident  that  all  is  well,  he  could  not 
help  but  laugh. 

What  made  him  laugh  was  partly  the  calm  of  the  man:  he 
was  always  waiting  for  something,  and  he  was  always  there.  He 
was  likewise  amused  at  the  thought  that  two  geese  could  make  a  man 
look  so  contented. 


IV 

As  Daniel  was  going  home  one  afternoon  from  a  piano  lesson, 
he  met  Eleanore  Jordan.  He  told  her  about  his  new  room  and  the 
three  bizarre  creatures  in  the  house  in  the  Long  Row. 

Eleanore  had  heard  all  about  them.  She  said  they  were  the 
daughters  of  the  geometrician  Rudiger,  and  that  he  had  left  the 
town  some  time  ago  because  of  a  quarrel  with  the  citizens,  or 
rather  with  one  of  the  gilds.  The  origin  of  the  trouble  was  the 
picture  of  a  certain  painter.  More  she  did  not  know,  other  than 


70  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

that  Rudigcr  had  gone  to  Switzerland  and  lost  his  life  by  falling 
down  one  of  the  mountains.  The  sisters,  she  said,  were  the  laugh- 
ing stock  of  the  town.  They  never  left  the  house  except  on 
certain  days,  when  they  went  out  to  the  nearby  cemetery  at  the 
Church  of  St.  John  to  place  flowers  on  the  grave  of  that  painter. 

Daniel  hardly  listened  to  what  she  said.  They  were  standing 
at  the  St.  Sebaldus  Church,  and  the  chimes  began  to  play. 
"Magnificent,"  he  murmured,  "an  ascending  triad  in  A." 

Eleanore  asked  him  how  he  was  getting  along,  and  looked  with 
regret  at  his  sunken  cheeks.  Her  virile  expression  was  rather  dis- 
pleasing to  him.  He  was  surprised  to  see  how  rarely  she  lowered 
her  eye  lids.  He  said  he  was  getting  along  quite  well.  She 
smiled. 

"It's  terrible  that  a  man  has  to  have  a  monster  in  his  body 
that  must  be  fed,"  he  remarked.  "Otherwise  one  could  storm  the 
heavens  and  steal  the  songs  of  the  angels.  But  this  was  not  to  be. 
You  have  first  to  flutter  your  wings  until  they  are  wounded  and 
break  your  chains,  and  by  that  time  such  ethereal  power  as  you 
may  have  had  is  dissipated." 

He  wrinkled  his  face  until  he  again  looked  like  the  wily  ape. 
"But  I  am  going  to  see  it  through,"  he  said.  "I  want  to  find  out 
whether  God  drew  me  from  the  urn  as  a  blank  or  a  prize."  He 
could  be  very  eloquent  when  he  talked  about  himself. 

Eleanore  smiled.  It  seemed  to  her  that  it  was  merely  neces- 
sary to  bring  a  little  order  into  his  life.  She  consequently  assumed 
the  responsibility  of  looking  after  his  room. 

In  Tetzel  Street  they  met  the  inspector.  As  Jordan  walked 
along  at  the  side  of  his  beloved  daughter,  it  seemed  to  him  that 
the  grey  walls  and  weather-beaten  stones  of  the  houses  were  no 
longer  so  earthy  or  weighed  down  with  time.  Eleanore  looked  to- 
ward the  West  into  the  purple  glow  of  the  setting  sun.  She 
was  not  quite  herself.  There  came  moments  when  she  suffered 
from  homesickness  for  a  fairer  land. 

She  thought  of  Italy.  She  conjured  up  lovely  visions  of 
sunny  bays,  blooming  groves,  and  white  statues. 

Daniel  however  went  on  toward  the  Full.  The  workmen  were 
coming  from  the  suburbs,  and  in  their  tired  faces  he  felt  that  he 
recognised  his  own  world.  "Oh,"  he  sighed,  "I  should  like  to 
get  nearer  the  stars,  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  more  dependable 
hearts,  of  hearts  that  are  truer  even  than  my  own." 

Just  then  he  looked  up  at  B«nda's  window,  and  saw  his  light. 
He  was  ashamed  of  himself. 


INSPECTOR  JORDAN  AND  HIS  CHILDREN      71 


The  first  time  Eleanore  visited  Daniel  it  was  along  toward 
evening.  She  heard  from  a  distance  the  piano  and  the  shrill 
crowing  of  Daniel's  voice.  Down  in  the  hall  she  saw  three  white 
figures  cuddled  up  close  to  each  other  like  hens  on  a  roost. 

It  was  the  Rudiger  sisters  trying  to  drink  in  the  creative  efforts 
of  the  artist.  That  they  were  eavesdropping  at  the  fount  of 
art  they  understood  both  in  the  good  and  the  bad  sense:  their 
enthusiasm  was  praiseworthy,  their  courtesy  was  deficient.  When 
they  caught  sight  of  Eleanore  on  the  stairway,  they  were  terrified, 
and  rustled  into  the  adjoining  room. 

The  three  elderly  hearts  beat  impetuously.  It  was  Jasmina's 
turn  to  read  from  Ruckert's  poems.  Jasmina  had  not  the  shadow 
of  a  desire  to  perform;  her  sisters  were  equally  disinclined  to 
listen. 

"It  is  not  right,"  the  three  kept  saying,  when  they  heard  of 
Eleanore's  visits.  "It  is  not  right."  Even  Meta  the  maid  was  of 
the  opinion  that  her  calls  were  highly  unconventional. 

As  Daniel  played  on  and  merely  nodded  to  her,  Eleanore's  eyes 
fell  on  the  mask  of  Zingarella.  She  stepped  up,  took  it  down 
from  the  nail  on  the  wall,  and  examined  it  in  perfect  silence. 

Daniel  had  in  the  meantime  left  the  piano.  A  loud  cry  from 
him  startled  her:  "What  the  devil  are  you  doing?"  he  exclaimed 
in  a  tone  of  immoderate  anger.  He  took  the  mask,  which  she 
was  handling  so  lightly  and  tremulously,  out  of  her  hands,  and 
replaced  it  on  the  nail  with  affectionate  care. 

The  sensitive  girl  at  once  began  to  cry.  She  turned  to  one 
side  in  order  to  conceal  her  tears.  Daniel  was  irritated,  but  the 
first  thought  that  occurred  to  him  was  how  he  could  make  amends 
for  his  rudeness.  He  fetched  a  worn  book,  and  offered  to  lend 
it  to  her.  It  was  a  translation  of  that  beautiful  old  novel, 
"Manon  Lescaut." 

Eleanore  came  frequently  after  office  hours,  but  never  remained 
long;  she  did  not  wish  to  make  the  people  at  home  uneasy. 
During  the  short  time  she  stayed  she  always  found  a  number  of 
things  to  do,  such  as  straightening  up  the  papers  on  his  table  or 
arranging  his  scores. 

She  became  acquainted  with  Benda;  he  took  a  liking  to  her. 
It  did  him  good  merely  to  be  in  her  presence,  and  he  could 
not  understand  why  she  did  not  have  the  same  wholesome  effect 
on  Daniel.  Daniel  seemed  thoroughly  unappreciative  of  the  girl. 


72  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

He  was  like  a  man  who  goes  along  the  street  carrying  a  basket 
full  of  eggs:  his  sole  ambition  for  the  time  being  is  to  see  that  not 
a  single  egg  is,  lost  or  broken. 

The  two  would  frequently  accompany  the  girl  home.  Daniel 
always  talked  about  himself,  and  Benda  listened  with  a  smile.  Or 
Benda  talked  about  Daniel,  and  Daniel  was  all  ears. 

What  did  people  say?  That  Eleanore  was  now  trotting  around 
with  three  men,  whereas  she  formerly  had  only  one  on  her  string, 
the  Baron,  and  that  you  are  going  to  hear  from  this  affair. 

Every  now  and  then  a  snip  of  ugly  gossip  reached  Eleanore's 
ears.  She  paid  not  the  slightest  attention  to  it.  She  looked  out 
from  her  glass  case  on  to  the  world  with  cool  and  cheerful 
indifference,  quite  incapable  of  placing  the  established  interpret- 
ation on  the  glances  of  calumniators. 


Benda  could  have  sketched  Daniel's  face  in  the  darkness:  the 
round  forehead,  the  little  nose,  pointed  and  mulish,  the  rigidly 
pinched  lips,  the  angular  musician's  chin,  and  the  deep  dimples 
in  his  cheeks. 

His  ignorance  of  the  musician  was  complete.  Like  all  scholars, 
he  nurtured  an  ingrained  distrust  when  it  came  to  the  supernatural 
influence  of  art.  for  the  great  musical  compositions  which,  in  the 
course  of  time  and  as  a  result  of  the  homage  of  succeeding  gen- 
erations, had  come  to  be  regarded  as  exemplary  and  incontestable, 
he  had  a  feeling  of  reverence.  For  the  creations  of  his  contem- 
poraries he  had  no  ear. 

That  it  was  hard  to  understand  and  appreciate,  he  knew. 
That  it  was  bitter  not  to  be  understood  or  appreciated,  he  had 
experienced.  That  the  discipline  associated  with  all  intellectual 
work  demands  its  tribute  in  the  form  of  sacrifical  renunciation 
needed  no  proof  in  his  case. 

The  musician  was  something  new  to  him.  How  did  he  regard 
him?  As  a  blind  man  whose  soul  was  on  fire.  As  a  drunken 
man  who  made  the  impression  of  repulsive  sobriety  on  other  men. 
As  an  obsessed  individual  who  was  living  an  excruciatingly  lonely 
life  and  was  unaware  of  it.  As  an  unpolished  peasant  with  the 
nerves  of  a  degenerate. 

The  scientist  wished  to  find  the  established  and  formulated  law 
in  the  musician — a  task  that  could  lead  only  to  despair.  The  friend 
surveyed  the  life  of  his  friend;  he  allowed  the  personalities  of 


INSPECTOR  JORDAN  AND  HIS  CHILDREN      73 

many  young  men  whom  he  had  met  in  life  to  pass  before  his  mind's 
eye.  He  looked  for  the  criteria  of  common  interests;  he  sought 
a  law,  even  here.  He  sat  in  the  dusk,  and  read  from  the  works 
of  the  philosopher  Maiplander.  Then  he  laid  the  book  to  one  side, 
and  said  to  himself:  "The  youth  of  to-day  are  lacerating,  devastat- 
ing themselves.  ...  It  is  a  fearful  age.  Measure,  proportion,  and 
balance  are  gone.  Every  model  becomes  a  caricature.  The  indi- 
vidual is  absolutely  dependent  upon  himself.  The  flame  is  without 
container,  and  threatens  to  burn  the  hand  that  would  check  it." 

In  Daniel  he  had  found  his  brother  in  fate.  Music  became  his 
brother  in  torture.  On  seeing  his  friend  lacerated  and  dev- 
astated, he  saw  twitch  from  the  eye  of  Gorgo  herself  the  pro- 
foundest  of  wisdom.  But  he  did  not  lay  bare  his  own  heart. 

One  night,  after  unending  conversation  had  brought  them  both 
to  silence — like  ships  which,  tossed  about  by  the  winds,  at  last 
drift  into  the  harbour — Benda,  taking  up  with  an  angry,  exasperated 
remark  by  Daniel  as  it  echoed  back  from  the  other  shore  of  this 
silence,  said:  "We  must  not  be  vain.  We  dare  not  usurp  a 
privilege  which  has  no  other  basis  than  our  inner  task.  We  must 
never  stand  before  our  own  picture.  It  seems  to  me  that  an 
artist  should  be  of  exalted  modesty,  and  that  without  this  modesty 
he  is  nothing  but  a  more  or  less  remarkable  lout." 

Daniel  looked  up  at  once.  Benda's  big  teeth  were  visible  under 
his  bushy  moustache.  He  had  a  habit  of  pulling  his  lips  apart 
whenever  he  was  searching  for  a  really  incisive  word. 

Benda  continued:  "The  great  majority  of  what  you  call  talent 
is  ignominious.  Talent  is  a  feather  duster.  All  that  comes  from 
the  finger  tips  is  evil.  The  man  who  has  a  distinct  goal  and  is  will- 
ing to  suffer  in  order  to  reach  it,  that  man  we  can  use.  And 
otherwise — how  beautiful  it  all  is  after  all!  Heaven  is  above 
us,  the  earth  is  beneath  us,  and  in  between  stands  immortal 
man." 

Daniel  got  up,  and  seized  Benda's  hand.  There  was  nothing  more 
vanquishing  than  Benda's  handshake.  His  good  strong  right  be- 
came a  vise  in  which  he  shook  a  man's  hand  until  it  became  limp, 
a  perfectly  delightful  benevolence  radiating  from  his  eyes  in  the 
meanwhile. 

The  two  men  exchanged  the  fraternal  "thou." 

VII 

Eleanore  returned  the  copy  of  "Manon  Lescaut."     When  Daniel 


74  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

asked  her  how  she  liked  it,  she  never  said  a  word.  Since  he  thought 
that  it  was  an  excellent  book,  he  began  to  scold. 

She  said:  "I  cannot  read  books  in  which  there  is  so  much  talk 
about  love." 

He  gazed  into  space  in  order  to  allow  her  voice  time  to  die 
away.  There  was  a  violin  tone  in  her  speech,  the  charm  of  which 
he  could  not  escape.  When  he  fully  realised  what  she  had  said, 
he  laughed  a  short  laugh,  and  remarked  that  her  attitude  was 
one  of  affected  coyness.  She  shook  her  head.  Then  he  teased 
her  about  going  with  young  Auffenberg,  and  asked  her  whether 
real  love  affairs  were  just  as  disagreeable  to  her  as  those  related 
in  novels. 

The  flaming  blue  of  her  eyes  compelled  him  to  look  down. 
It  was  not  pleasant  for  him  to  admit,  by  action,  that  the  expres- 
sion in  her  face  was  stronger  than  his  own.  She  left,  and  did  not 
allow  herself  to  be  seen  for  a  few  days. 

When  she  returned,  he  was  naive  enough  to  renew  his  banter. 
She  took  her  seat  on  the  corner  sofa,  and  looked  straight  into  his 
face:  "Do  we  really  intend  to  remain  friends,  Daniel?"  she 
asked. 

He  cast  a  side  glance  of  amazement  at  her,  not  because  he  was 
particularly  struck  by  her  charming  suavity  and  marked  winsomeness, 
but  rather  because  the  violin  tone  in  her  throat  resounded  more 
strongly  and  clearly  than  ever.  But  it  was  quite  impossible  for 
him  to  give  an  affirmative  reply  to  her  question  without  puckering 
up  his  lips  and  putting  his  hands  in  his  trouser  pockets. 

She  said  she  had  no  desire  to  seem  important  in  his  estimation, 
that  she  merely  wanted  him  to  regard  her  as  different  from  other 
girls.  She  insisted  that  he  concede  her  one  privilege  if  they  were 
to  remain  friends:  he  was  not  to  talk  to  her  about  love,  either 
seriously  or  in  jest.  She  remarked  that  for  months  the  very 
word  love  had  called  up  ghost-like  recollections.  Why  this  was  so, 
she  said  she  could  not  tell  him,  not  now,  perhaps  years  from  now 
when  both  had  grown  old.  She  could  not  do  it,  for  if  she 
endeavoured  to  refresh  old  memories  or  revive  what  she  had  half 
forgotten,  her  whole  past  arose  before  her,  flat,  languid,  and 
insipid,  easily  misinterpreted  by  the  person  who  heard  the  story, 
however  clear  it  might  be  to  her.  She  repeated  that  this  was  the 
way  it  was,  and  she  could  not  help  it.  Once  again  she  asked 
that  he  spare  her  feelings  on  this  point. 

Her  face  took  on  a  serious  expression;  it  resembled  an  old 
picture.  There  was  something  dream-like  in  her  words. 


INSPECTOR  JORDAN  AND  HIS  CHILDREN      75 

"Well,  if  that  is  all  you  have  on  your  mind,  Eleanore,  I  am 
sure  that  it  will  be  easy  for  me  to  respect  your  wish,"  said  Daniel. 
There  was  a  manifest  lack  of  feeling  in  the  kindness  he  displayed. 
It  seemed  indeed  that  the  secret  to  which  she  was  attaching  so 
much  importance  was  far  removed  from  his  egotistically  encircled 
world.  The  little  fountain  in  the  garden  was  rustling.  He 
listened  to  see  if  he  could  not  catch  the  dominating  tone  in  the 
continual  splashing. 

Eleanore  turned  to  him  now  with  renewed  if  not  novel  candour. 
She  was  closer  to  him  in  every  way — her  eyes,  her  hands,  and 
her  words. 


VIII 

Daniel  had  just  completed  an  orchestral  work  which  he  had 
entitled  "Vineta."  He  wished  to  have  Benda  hear  it.  One 
evening  about  six  Benda  came  in.  Everything  was  ready.  Daniel 
sat  down  at  the  piano.  His  face  was  pale,  his  smooth  upper  lip 
was  trembling. 

"Now  think  of  the  sea;  think  of  a  storm;  think  of  a  boat  with 
people  in  it.  Picture  to  yourself  a  wonderful  aurora  borealis  and 
a  sunken  city  rising  from  the  sea.  Imagine  a  sea  that  had  suddenly 
become  calm,  and  in  the  light  a  strange  phenomenon.  Conjure  up 
such  a  scene  before  your  mind's  eye,  or  conjure  up  something 
totally  different,  for  this  is  a  false  way  of  getting  at  the  meaning 
of  music.  It  is  plain  prostitution  to  think  anything  of  the  kind. 
Ice-flat." 

He  was  just  about  to  begin,  when  some  one  knocked  at  the  door. 
Eleanore  entered.  She  whisked  across  the  room,  and  took  her 
seat  on  the  sofa. 

The  piece  opened  with  a  quiet  rhythmical,  mournful  movement, 
which  suddenly  changed  to  a  raging  presto.  The  melodic  figure 
was  shattered  like  a  bouquet  of  flowers  in  a  waterfall  almost  before 
it  had  had  time  to  take  shape  and  display  real  composure.  The 
dissipated  elements,  scattered  to  the  four  corners  of  the  earth,  then 
returned,  hesitatingly  and  with  evident  contrition,  to  be  reunited 
in  a  single  chain.  It  seemed  that  the  mad  whirlwind  had  left 
them  richer,  purer  and  more  spiritual.  They  pealed  forth  now, 
one  after  the  other,  in  a  slow-moving  decrescendo,  until  they  con- 
stituted a  solemn  chorus  played  in  moderato,  melting  at  last  into 
the  lovely  and  serious  main  theme,  which  in  the  finale  streamed 
away  and  beyond  into  infinity,  dying  out  on  an  arpeggi.itcd  chord. 


76  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

Where  the  piano  failed  to  produce  the  full  effect,  Daniel  helped 
out  with  his  crow-like  voice.  It  was  the  uncanny  energy  of 
expression  that  prevented  his  singing  from  having  a  comic  effect. 

Benda's  eyes  we.c  so  strained  in  the  effort  to  listen  intelligently 
and  appreciatively  that  they  became  dazed,  glazed.  Had  he  been 
asked  he  could  not  have  said  whether  the  work  was  a  success  or  a 
failure.  The  feature  of  the  performance  that  convinced  him  was 
the  man  and  the  magnetism  that  radiated  from  the  man.  The 
work  itself  he  could  neither  fathom  nor  evaluate.  It  took  hold 
of  him  nevertheless  because  of  its  inseparable  association  with 
the  human  phenomenon. 

Daniel  got  up,  stumbled  over  to  the  sofa,  buried  his  face  in 
his  hands,  and  sighed:  "Do  you  feel  it?  Do  you  really  feel  it?" 
He  then  rose,  lunged  at  the  piano,  seized  the  score,  and  hurled  it 
to  the  floor:  "Ah,  it's  no  account;  it  is  nothing;  it  is  an  abominable 
botch." 

He  threw  himself  on  the  sofa  a  second  time.  Eleanore,  sitting 
perfectly  motionless  in  the  other  corner,  looked  at  him  with  the 
eyes  of  an  astonished  child. 

Benda  had  gone  to  the  window,  and  was  looking  out  into  the 
trees  and  the  grey  clouds  of  the  sky.  Then  he  turned  around. 
"That  something  must  be  done  for  you  and  your  cause  is  clear," 
he  said. 

Eleanore  stretched  out  her  arms  toward  Benda  as  though  she 
wished  to  thank  him.  Her  lips  began  to  move.  But  when  she 
saw  Daniel  she  did  not  dare  to  say  a  word,  until  she  suddenly 
exclaimed:  "Heavens,  there  are  two  buttons  on  his  vest  which  are 
hanging  by  a  thread."  She  ran  out  of  the  room.  In  a  few 
moments  she  returned  with  needle  and  thread,  which  she  had 
had  Meta  give  her,  sat  down  at  Daniel's  side,  and  sewed  the 
buttons  on. 

Benda  had  to  laugh.  But  what  she  did  had  a  tranquilising 
effect;  she  seemed  to  enable  life  to  win  the  victory  over  the 
insidious  pranks  of  apparitions. 


IX 


In  years  gone  by,  Benda  had  known  the  theatrical  manager  and 
impresario  Dormaul.  He  went  to  Dormaul  now,  and  took  Daniel's 
new  work  along  with  him;  for  the  versatile  parvenu,  who  always 
had  a  number  of  irons  in  the  fire,  also  published  music. 


INSPECTOR  JORDAN  AND  HIS  CHILDREN      77 

A  few  weeks  elapsed  before  Benda  heard  from  Dormaul:  "In- 
comprehensible stuff!  Crazy  attempt  to  be  original!  You  couldn't 
coax  a  dog  away  from  the  stove  with  it."  Such  was  Dormaul's 
opinion. 

A  young  man  with  fiery  red  hair  followed  Benda  to  the  door 
and  spoke  to  him.  He  said  his  name  was  Wurzelmann  and  that 
he  was  a  musician  himself;  that  he  had  attended  the  Vienna  Con- 
servatory, where  his  teacher  had  given  him  a  letter  of  recommen- 
dation to  Alexander  Dormaul.  He  also  told  Benda  that  Dormaul 
was  planning  to  form  an  opera  company  that  would  visit  the 
smaller  cities  of  the  provinces,  and  that  he  was  to  be  the  Kapell- 
meister. 

He  spoke  in  the  detestable  idiom  of  the  Oriental  Jew.  Benda 
was  politely  cold. 

The  main  point  was  still  to  come:  "Vineta"  had  aroused  Wurzel- 
mann's  profound  admiration;  he  had  read  the  score  on  the  side: 
"A  great  talent,  Doctor,  a  talent  such  as  we  have  not  had  for  a 
long,  long  while,"  said  Wurzelmann. 

"Yes,  but  what  am  I  to  say  about  Herr  Dormaul's  opinion?" 
asked  Benda.  He  found  it  difficult  to  trust  the  man  before  him, 
and  was  using  the  judgment  of  the  man  behind  him  as  a  foil. 

"Don't  you  know  Dormaul?  I  thought  you  did.  Whenever 
he  has  no  authority  to  fear  he  becomes  very  bold.  Lay  the  Ninth 
Symphony  before  him  without  Beethoven's  name  to  it,  and  he  will 
tell  you  at  once  that  it  is  rubbish.  Do  you  want  to  bet?" 

"Honestly?"  asked  Benda,  somewhat  concerned. 

"Give  me  the  score,  and  I'll  promise  you  to  arouse  the  least 
sensitive  from  their  lethargy  with  it.  With  a  work  of  that  kind 
you  have  got  to  blow  the  trumpet." 

Benda  thought  it  over.  He  had  no  use  for  trumpet-blowing, 
and  no  confidence  in  those  who  did  the  blowing.  And  yet  he 
consented,  for  he  did  not  feel  justified  in  arbitrarily  depriving 
Daniel  of  a  chance. 

It  turned  out  that  Wurzelmann  had  told  the  truth.  A  fortnight 
later  Daniel  was  informed  that  the  Orchestral  Union  had  decided 
to  perform  his  work  in  February.  In  order  to  provide  its  hearers 
with  a  more  elaborate  picture  of  his  creative  ability,  the  Union 
asked  him  for  a  second  work.  His  compositions  were  perfect; 
others  needed  revision. 

Wurzelmann  boasted  of  having  won  his  way  to  the  seats  of  the 
mighty.  He  had  the  cordial  approval  of  such  professors  of  music 


78  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

as  Wackerbarth  and  Herold.  His  masterpiece  of  diplomacy  lay- 
in  the  fact  that  he  had  secured  Andreas  Doderlein  as  director  of 
the  orchestra. 

His  store  of  suggestions  was  inexhaustible,  his  plans  without 
number.  He  mentioned  the  fact  that  when  the  company  was 
on  the  road  they  would  have  to  have  a  second  Kapellmeister,  since 
he  himself  would  have  to  function  at  times  as  substitute  director: 
"Leave  it  all  to  me,  dear  Nothafft,"  he  said,  "Alexander  Dormaul 
has  got  to  dance  to  my  tune,  and  my  tune  is  this:  It  is  Nothafft 
or  nobody  for  Kapellmeister." 

If  he  began  with  humility,  he  concluded  with  familiarity. 
Daniel  hated  red-headed  people,  particularly  when  they  had  in- 
flamed eyes  and  slobbered  when  'Jiey  spoke. 

"He  is  an  unappetising  fellow,  your  Wurzelmann,"  he  said  to 
Benda,  "and  it  is  embarrassing  to  me  to  be  indebted  to  him.  He 
imagines  he  flatters  me  when  he  speaks  contemptibly  of  himself. 
What  he  deserves  is  a  kick  or  two." 

Benda  was  silent.  Touched  by  Wurzelmann's  devoted  efforts, 
he  had  called  him  servule,  or  the  "little  slave."  It  was  pleasant 
to  think  that  there  was  some  one  to  remove  the  stumbling  blocks 
from  the  road,  so  that  the  feet  of  him  who  had  risen  from  obscurity 
might  find  a  place  to  walk.  But  the  little  slave  was  filled  with 
the  admiration  of  the  Jew,  born  in  poverty  and  oppression,  for  the 
genius  of  the  other  race. 

Benda  knew  this.  He  was  uneasy  at  the  thought  of  it;  for 
other  and  no  less  disingenuous  fanatics  regarded  Wurzelmann's 
behaviour  merely  as  a  racial  peculiarity. 


Summer  with  its  hot  August  days  had  come.  The  two  friends 
took  frequent  walks  out  to  the  suburbs,  strolling  through  the  forests 
of  Fcucht  and  Fischbach,  or  climbing  the  high  hills  about  the  city. 

Eleanorc  joined  them  on  one  of  these  excursions.  It  was  a  joy 
to  see  her  drink  in  the  fragrance  of  the  flowers  and  the  fir  trees 
or  study  the  various  cloud  formations  and  the  alternating  scenes  of 
the  landscape.  When  she  did  this  she  was  like  a  bird  gliding 
along  on  noiseless  wing  in  the  upper  regions,  far  removed  from 
the  grime  of  the  earth,  bathing  in  the  undcfilcd  air  of  the  clouds. 

She  listened  to  the  conversation  of  the  friends  with  intelligent 
attention.  A  piercing  glance  or  a  wrinkle  of  the  brow  showed 
that  she  was  taking  sides,  and  accepting  or  rejecting  in  her  own 


INSPECTOR  JORDAN  AND  HIS  CHILDREN      79 

mind  the  views  that  were  being  set  forth.  If  she  was  moved  to 
express  an  opinion  of  her  own,  she  generally  hit  the  nail  on  the 
head. 

As  they  were  returning  home,  night  set  in.  The  sky  was  clear; 
the  stars  were  shining.  There  were  a  great  number  of  falling 
stars.  Eleanore  remarked  that  she  really  did  not  have  as  many 
wishes  as  she  could  express  under  these  circumstances.  The  erudite 
Benda  replied  with  a  smile  that  in  these  August  nights  there  were 
frequently  so  many  groups  of  asteroids  that  the  whole  firmament 
seemed  to  be  in  motion,  and  that  one  could  easily  grow  tired  of 
so  many  wishes. 

Eleanore  wanted  to  know  what  an  asteroid  was.  Benda  explained 
it  to  her  as  well  as  he  could.  Then  he  told  her  all  about  con- 
stellations and  the  milky  way,  and  explained  to  her  that  the  latter 
consists  of  millions  of  individual  stars.  He  also  spoke  of  the  size 
of  the  stars;  and  since  he  referred  to  them  occasionally  as  suns 
and  worlds,  she  became  somewhat  sceptical,  and  asked  him  whether 
there  were  any  earths  among  the  stars.  "Earths?  What  do  you 
mean  by  earths? "  he  asked.  "Why,  earths,  just  like  the  one  we 
live  on,"  she  replied.  Having  been  told  that  there  were  earths 
among  the  stars,  Eleanore  raised  a  number  of  rather  cleverly 
framed  questions  about  the  trees  and  animals  and  people  that  might 
be  found  on  these  other  earths.  She  was  told  that  it  was  highly 
probable  that  they  were  all  inhabited  about  as  our  own:  "Why 
should  this  globe  enjoy  special  privileges? "  he  asked.  He  added, 
however,  that  even  if  the  inhabitants  of  the  other  earths  did  not 
have  the  same  mental  faculties  that  we  have,  they  were  at  least 
beings  endowed  with  reason  and  instinct. 

"Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  such  people  as  you  and  Daniel 
and  I  may  be  living  up  there  in  those  starry  regions?" 

"Certainly." 

"And  that  there  are  countless  peoples  and  humanities  up  among 
the  stars  of  whom  we  know  nothing  at  all?" 

"Certainly." 

Eleanore  sat  down  on  a  milestone  by  the  roadside,  gazed  out 
into  space  with  trembling  lips,  and  broke  out  crying.  Benda  took 
her  hand,  and  caressed  it. 

"I  am  awfully  sorry  for  all  those  peoples  up  there,"  Eleanore 
sobbed,  looked  up,  smiled,  and  let  the  tears  take  their  course. 
Benda  would  have  liked  to  take  Daniel  by  the  arm,  and  shout  into 
his  car:  "Look  at  her  now!"  Daniel  was  looking  at  her,  but  he  did 
not  sec  her. 


8o  THE  GOOSE  MAN 


XI 


One  evening  in  October,  Inspector  Jordan  left  his  house  in 
Broad  Street,  buttoned  his  top  coat  more  closely  about  him,  and 
walked  hastily  through  a  connecting  alley  that  was  so  narrow  that 
it  seemed  as  if  some  one  had  taken  a  big  knife  and  cut  the  houses 
in  two.  His  goal  was  Carolina  Street.  It  was  late,  and  he  was 
hungry.  Doubting  whether  Gertrude  would  have  a  warm  supper 
ready  for  him,  he  went  to  an  inn. 

He  had  spent  two  full  hours  there  trying  to  get  a  rich  hops 
dealer  to  take  out  some  insurance.  The  man  had  him  explain 
over  and  over  again  the  advantages  of  insurance,  studied  the  tables 
backwards  and  forwards,  and  yet  he  was  unable  to  come  to  a 
decision.  Then  the  waiter  brought  him  his  dinner.  There  he 
sat,  smacking  his  lips  with  the  noise  of  human  contentment,  his 
great  white  napkin  tied  under  his  chin  in  such  a  fashion  that  the 
two  corners  of  it  stuck  out  on  either  side  of  his  massive  head, 
giving  the  appearance  of  two  white  ears.  He  had  offended  Jor- 
dan's social  instincts:  he  had  not  thought  it  worth  while  to  wait 
for  an  invitation. 

Among  other  guests  in  the  inn  was  Bonengel,  the  barber.  He 
recognised  Jordan  and  spoke  to  him.  He  took  a  seat  in  the  back- 
ground, picked  out  the  ugliest  and  greasiest  of  the  waitresses,  and 
ordered  a  bulky  portion  of  sausage  and  sauerkraut. 

He  told  lascivious  anecdotes.  When  the  waitress  brought  him 
his  food,  she  tittered,  and  said:  "He  is  a  jolly  good  fellow,  Bonen- 
gel is." 

Jordan  began  to  eat  rapidly,  but  soon  lost  his  appetite,  pushed 
his  plate  to  one  side,  propped  his  chin  on  his  hands,  and  stared  at 
the  immobile  clouds  of  tobacco  smoke  before  him. 

He  had  a  feeling  that  it  was  no  longer  possible  to  keep  at  this 
work  day  after  day,  year  in  and  year  out.  Running  from  one  end 
of  the  city  to  the  other,  up  and  down  the  same  stairs,  through 
the  same  old  streets — he  could  not  do  it.  Answering  the  same 
questions,  making  the  same  assertions,  refuting  the  same  objections, 
praising  the  same  plan  in  the  same  words,  feigning  the  same  interest 
and  quieting  the  same  distrust  day  after  day — no,  he  could  not  do 
it.  Disturbing  the  same  people  in  their  domestic  peace,  prodding 
himself  on  to  new  effort  every  morning,  listening  to  the  same 
curtain  lectures  of  that  monster  of  monsters,  the  insatiate  stock 
market,  and  standing  up  under  the  commands  of  his  chief,  Alfons 


INSPECTOR  JORDAN  AND  HIS  CHILDREN      81 

Diruf— no,  he  was  no  longer  equal  to  it.  It  was  all  contrary  to 
the  dignity  of  a  man  of  his  years. 

He  was  ashamed  of  himself;  and  he  was  fearfully  tired. 

He  thought  of  his  past  life.  He  recalled  how  he  had  risen 
from  poverty,  and  worked  up  to  the  position  of  a  highly  respected 
merchant.  That  was  when  he  was  in  Ulm.  There  he  had  married 
Agnes,  the  blond  daughter  of  the  railroad  engineer. 

But  why  had  he  never  become  rich?  Other  men  who  were  dis- 
tinctly inferior  to  him  in  shrewdness,  diligence,  and  polish  were 
now  wealthy;  he  was  poor.  Three  times  he  had  been  threatened 
with  bankruptcy,  and  three  times  friends  had  come  to  his  rescue. 
Then  a  partner  joined  him,  invested  some  capital  in  the  firm,  and 
the  business  was  once  more  on  its  feet. 

But  it  turned  out  that  this  partner  was  a  stranger  to  loyalty 
and  quite  without  conscience.  "Jordan  is  a  drag  on  the  business," 
he  would  say  to  his  customers,  "Jordan  is  stupid,  Jordan  cannot 
make  a  calculation."  And  the  partner  never  rested  until  Jordan 
was  paid  a  set  sum  and  eased  out  of  the  firm. 

He  then  tried  his  fortune  here  and  there  for  eight  or  nine 
years.  "Don't  worry,  Jordan,"  said  Agnes,  "everything  will  come 
out  well."  But  it  did  not.  Whatever  Jordan  took  hold  of,  he 
took  hold  of  at  the  wrong  end  at  the  wrong  time  with  the  wrong 
people. 

He  could  not  get  on.  Not  only  because  his  hand  was  heavy 
and  his  head  too  honest,  but  because  he  had  allowed  himself  to 
be  befooled  by  a  chimera. 

Early  in  life  he  had  had  a  dream,  and  all  his  enterprise  and 
industry  were  directed  toward  the  fulfilment  of  this  dream.  It 
had  been  impossible:  he  had  never  been  able  to  save  up  enough 
money.  Every  time  he  discussed  his  favourite  wish  with  Agnes, 
and  told  her  about  the  happy  days  when  he  would  be  able  to  live 
his  own  life  and  be  his  own  boss,  she  encouraged  him  and  tried  to 
help  him.  But  it  seemed  now  that  she  had  known  all  along  that 
he  had  merely  been  dreaming,  and  that  her  magnanimity  had 
prompted  her  not  to  jolt  him  out  of  his  delusion. 

It  had  always  seemed  to  him  that  the  world  of  dolls  was  a 
world  in  itself.  He  had  taken  an  enchanted  delight  in  picturing 
the  types  of  faces,  clothes,  and  hair  he  would  design  for  his 
various  dolls,  big  and  little.  Dolls  of  the  most  variegated  charm 
peopled  his  fancy:  there  were  princesses  of  different  degrees  of 
proximity  to  the  throne,  fisher  maids  and  mermaids;  there  were 
shepherds  and  shepherdesses,  Casperls  and  lusty  imps,  dolls  with 


82  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

heads  of  porcelain  and  dolls  with  heads  of  wax,  all  so  faithfully 
imitated  that  it  would  require  anthropomorphic  skill  to  detect 
that  they  were  not  human  beings.  Their  hair  was,  of  course,  to 
be  human  hair.  Some  of  them  were  to  wear  the  costumes  of 
foreign  races,  while  others  were  to  be  dressed  up  like  fairy  figures, 
sprites,  and  gnomes.  There  was  to  be  a  Haroun  al  Raschid  and 
an  Oriental  Dervish. 

The  last  time  he  moved  his  choice  fell  on  Nuremberg.  He  was 
attracted  to  Nuremberg  because  it  was  the  centre  of  the  doll 
industry. 

About  this  time  Agnes  died,  and  he  was  left  alone  with  the 
three  children  for  whom  he  had  to  make  a  living.  He  no  longer 
had  the  courage  to  hope  for  success  or  prosperity;  even  the  doll 
factory  had  become  a  chimera.  He  had  but  one  ambition:  he 
wished  to  lay  aside  ten  thousand  marks  for  each  of  his  three  daugh- 
ters, so  that  they  would  be  provided  for  in  any  event  after  his 
death.  The  boy,  he  thought,  could  take  care  of  himself. 

Up  to  the  present,  however,  he  had  not  been  able  to  place  the 
half  of  this  sum  in  the  bank.  And  now,  suppose  he  lost  his  posi- 
tion; suppose  the  frailties  of  old  age  prevented  him  from  making 
his  own  living;  suppose  he  was  obliged  to  draw  on  the  savings  of 
years  for  his  own  support.  How  could  he  look  his  daughters 
in  the  face  in  the  evening  of  his  earthly  life? 

"The  slag  hid  behind  something  in  the  cellar,  and  when  his 
wife  tried  to  bring  him  his  pants,  she  let  them  fall  in  the  flour 
bin."  This  elegant  remark  emanated  from  Bonengel  the  barber. 

His  auditors  gurgled,  the  waitress  roared. 

As  Jordan  walked  home  he  could  hear  above  the  wind  the  voice 
of  Bonengel  the  barber.  It  sounded  like  the  rattling  of  a  pair  of 
hair-clippers. 

He  disliked  walking  up  the  steps  to  his  front  door;  they  were 
so  narrow;  they  creaked  as  though  they  were  ready  to  fall  down; 
and  he  was  always  afraid  ha  would  meet  some  blind  people.  An 
oculist  lived  on  the  first  floor,  and  he  had  often  seen  sightless  per- 
sons feeling  their  way  around. 

A  letter  was  lying  on  his  table.  The  cover  bore  the  address  of 
the  General  Agency  of  the  Prudentia  Insurance  Co.  He  walked 
up  and  down  a  while  before  opening  it.  It  was  his  discharge 
papers. 


INSPECTOR  JORDAN  AND  HIS  CHILDREN     83 

XII 

Friedrich  Benda  became  more  and  more  dejected.  He  saw 
that  as  a  private  individual  he  would  have  to  waste  energy  that 
should  be  going  into  his  profession.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he  was 
condemned  to  bury  his  talent  in  eternal  obscurity. 

He  broke  off  from  the  most  of  his  acquaintances;  with  others 
he  quit  corresponding.  If  friends  spoke  to  him  on  the  street,  he 
turned  his  head.  His  sense  of  honour  had  been  wounded;  he 
was  on  the  point  of  losing  his  self-respect. 

Daniel  was  the  only  one  who  failed  to  notice  the  change  that 
was  coming  over  him.  Probably  he  had  accustomed  himself  to  the 
belief  that  Benda's  life  was  orderly  and  agreeable.  The  plebeian 
prosperity  of  the  family  in  which  he  himself  lived  probably  made 
him  feel  that  that  was  the  way  his  friend  was  living.  At  all 
events  he  never  asked  any  questions,  and  was  never  once  struck  by 
the  fact  that  Benda  would  sit  before  him  for  hours  with  his  face 
wrapped  in  bitter,  melancholy  gloom. 

Benda  smiled  at  Daniel's  naivete;  for  he  felt  that  his  attitude 
was  due  to  naivete  and  nothing  more.  He  harboured  no  resent- 
ment. He  decided  not  to  say  a  word  about  his  condition  to  Daniel, 
then  all  taken  up  with  himself  and  his  music.  It  was,  however, 
at  times  impossible  for  him  to  prevent  his  smarting  and  his  desire 
to  put  an  end  to  his  ineffectual  existence  from  breaking  through 
the  coating  of  reserve  in  which  he  had  encased  himself. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  of  a  dismal  day,  Benda  called  for  Daniel 
just  as  he  was  finishing  one  of  his  piano  lessons.  The  two  friends 
decided  to  take  a  walk  and  then  dine  together  at  Benda's. 

In  the  hallway  they  met  the  Rudiger  sisters  as  they  were  return- 
ing from  their  daily  stroll  through  the  garden.  Benda  greeted 
them  with  an  antiquated  politeness;  Daniel  just  barely  touched 
the  rim  of  his  hat.  The  sisters  lined  up  as  if  ready  for  a  cotillion, 
and  returned  the  greetings  with  infinite  grace.  Fraulein  Jasmina 
let  a  rose  fall,  and  when  Benda  picked  it  up  for  her,  she  pressed 
her  hand  against  her  scarcely  noticeable  breast  and  gave  voice  to 
her  gratitude,  again  with  infinite  grace. 

When  they  reached  the  street,  Benda  said  in  a  tone  of  com- 
passion: "They  are  three  delicate  creatures;  they  live  their  lonely 
lives  like  vestal  virgins  guarding  a  sacred  fire." 

Daniel  smiled.  "Yes,  a  sacred  fire?  Do  you  refer  to  the 
incident  with  the  painter?" 

"Yes,  I  do;  and  he  was  no  ordinary  painter,  either,  let  me  tell 


84  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

you.     I   heard  the  whole  story  the  other  day.     The  painter  was 

Anselm  Feuerbach." 

Daniel  knew  nothing  whatever  about  Anselm  Feuerbach.  He 
was  impressed,  however,  by  the  name,  which,  by  virtue  of  a  mys- 
terious magic,  struck  his  ear  like  the  chime  of  a  noble  bell.  "Tell 
me  about  him,"  he  said. 

The  story  was  as  follows:  Four  years  before  his  death,  that  is, 
six  years  ago,  Anselm  Feuerbach  came  to  Nuremberg  for  the  last 
time  to  visit  his  mother.  He  was  already  sick  in  body  and  soul, 
and  was  much  disappointed  in  his  alleged  friends.  The  incessant 
torture  resulting  from  lack  of  appreciation  had  told  on  his  health. 
A  few  of  the  more  enlightened  citizens,  however,  recalled  his 
fame,  as  it  floated  about  in  the  heavy  air  of  Germany,  somewhat 
befogged  and  quite  expatriated,  and  the  Chamber  of  Commerce 
placed  an  order  with  Feuerbach  for  a  painting  to  be  hung  in  the 
Palace  of  Justice.  Feuerbach  accepted  the  order,  choosing  as  his 
theme  Emperor  Ludwig  in  the  act  of  conferring  on  the  citizens 
of  Nuremberg  the  right  to  free  trade.  When  the  picture  was 
completed,  there  was  a  great  deal  of  dissatisfaction  with  it.  The 
merchants  had  expected  something  totally  different:  they  had 
looked  for  a  cheap  but  striking  canvas  after  the  style  of  K-reling, 
and  not  this  dignified,  classical  work  by  Feuerbach. 

Nor  was  this  all.  The  hanging  space  was  so  small  that  several 
inches  of  the  canvas  had  to  be  run  into  the  wall,  and  the  light 
was  wretched.  The  Chamber  of  Commerce  proceeded  at  once  to 
make  trouble  with  regard  to  the  paying  of  Feuerbach's  bill.  An 
ugly  quarrel  arose  in  which  Rudiger,  the  geometrician,  who  had 
always  been  an  ardent  champion  of  Feuerbach,  took  the  artist's 
part  It  finally  reached  the  point  where  Rudiger  left  the  city, 
swearing  he  would  never  return.  His  daughters  had  all  three  loved 
Feuerbach  from  the  time  he  lived  in  their  father's  house. 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,  if  there  ever  was  an  amiable  artist,"  Benda 
said  in  conclusion,  "it  was  Anselm  Feuerbach.  Would  you  like  to 
see  him?  Come,  then." 

They  were  near  the  Cemetery  of  St.  John.  The  gate  was  open, 
and  Daniel  followed  Benda.  They  walked  along  a  narrow  path, 
until  Benda  pointed  to  a  flat  stone  bearing  the  name  of  Albrecht 
Durcr.  After  this  they  came  to  Feuerbach's  grave.  A  bronze 
tablet,  already  quite  darkened  with  age  and  weather,  bore  Feuer- 
barh's  face  in  profile.  Beneath  it  lay  a  laurel  wreath,  the  withered 
leaves  of  which  were  fluttering  in  the  wind. 


INSPECTOR  JORDAN  AND  HIS  CHILDREN      85 

"What  a  life  he  lived!"  said  Benda  in  a  low  tone.  "And  what 
a  death  he  died!  The  death  of  a  hunted  dog!" 

As  they  walked  back  to  the  city,  night  came  on.  Daniel  had 
removed  his  hat,  and  was  walking  along  at  Benda's  side  looking 
straight  ahead.  Benda  was  as  nervous  as  he  had  ever  been  in 
his  life. 

"A  German  life,  and  a  German  death,"  he  exclaimed.  "He 
stretched  out  his  hand  to  give,  and  the  people  spat  in  it.  He  gives 
and  gives  and  gives,  and  they  take  and  take  and  take,  without 
gratitude,  yea,  rather  with  scorn.  The  only  thing  they  study  is 
their  consanguinity  table.  They  make  the  microscope  and  the 
catechism  copulate;  their  philosophy  and  their  police  systems  live 
in  mesalliance.  Good  demeanour  they  know  not;  of  human  agree- 
ments they  have  never  heard.  They  decide  to  do  something,  and 
they  do  it.  That  is  all.  There  is  no  longer  a  place  for  me  in 
Germany.  I  am  leaving." 

"You  are  going  to  leave?  Where  are  you  going?"  asked  Daniel, 
in  faithful  amazement.  Benda  bit  his  lips,  and  was  silent. 

"Do  you  see  these  big  white  spots  here?  They  have  neither 
mountains  nor  rivers  on  them.  Those  are  places  that  have  never 
been  trod  upon  by  European  feet.  There  is  where  I  am  going." 
He  smiled  a  gentle  smile. 

"Really?  When?"  asked  Daniel,  filled  with  dismay  at  the 
thought  of  losing  his  friend. 

"I  have  not  decided  when,  but  it  will  be  soon.  I  have  work  to 
do  over  there.  I  need  air,  room,  sky,  the  free  animal  and  the 
free  plant." 

Benda's  mother  came  in.  She  was  rather  tall,  walked  with  the 
difficulties  of  age,  had  sharp  features  and  deep-set  eyes. 

She  looked  first  at  her  son  and  then  at  Daniel.  Then  her  eyes 
fell  on  the  atlas  and  remained  fixed  upon  it,  filled  with  an  expres- 
sion of  horror  and  anxiety. 

Daniel  did  not  know  what  to  say.  Benda,  still  smiling  to  him- 
self, began  to  talk  noout  other  things. 

XIII 

At  the  death  of  her  mother,  Gertrude  Jordan  was  nine  years 
old.  She  had  crept  into  the  death  chamber  and  sat  by  the  bier 
for  three  hours.  Perhaps  her  seclusion  from  the  world  and  asso- 
ciation with  people  dated  from  that  hour.  As  she  was  leaving  the 


86  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

death  room,  the  clock  on  the  wall  struck,  and  a  cock  crowed  in  the 
distance. 

"Why  do  you  tick,  clock?"  she  asked  in  a  loud  voice,  "why  do 
you  crow,  cock?"  And  again:  "Who  makes  you  tick,  clock,  who 
makes  you  crow,  cock? " 

She  had  grown  up,  and  no  one  knew  anything  about  her.  It 
was  even  difficult  for  her  own  father  to  approach  her;  how  she 
was  constituted,  mentally  and  spiritually,  he  did  not  know.  She 
never  associated  with  girls  of  her  own  age.  Her  dark  eyes  glowed 
with  wrath  when  she  heard  the  senseless,  sensuous  laughter  of 
other  girls. 

The  first  time  she  partook  of  the  holy  communion  she  swooned 
and  had  to  be  carried  out.  Jordan  then  took  her  to  Pommers- 
felden  to  his  sister,  the  widow  of  the  district  physician  Kupfer- 
schmied.  At  the  end  of  one  week  she  returned  alone,  completely 
broken  in  spirit.  She  had  seen  a  calf  slaughtered;  the  sight  had 
made  her  almost  insane. 

From  the  time  she  was  fifteen  years  old  she  had  insisted  on 
having  her  own  bed  room.  When  she  was  sixteen  she  demanded 
that  the  maid  be  discharged;  she  herself  did  all  the  cooking  and 
kept  house.  As  soon  as  she  had  finished  her  work,  she  would  take 
her  seat  by  the  quilting  frame. 

Through  her  father,  Benjamin  Dorn  had  come  into  the  family. 
Gertrude  liked  him  because  Eleanore  made  fun  of  him.  He  did 
not  seem  to  her  like  a  man;  he  reminded  her  rather  of  the  lan- 
guishing angels  she  embroidered.  He  brought  her  all  his  religious 
tracts  and  edifying  pamphlets,  but  she  could  not  grasp  the  language. 
He  took  her  to  the  Methodist  revivals,  but  the  noisy  gnashing  of 
teeth  at  these  meetings  terrified  her,  and  after  a  few  times  it  was 
impossible  to  persuade  her  to  go  back.  He  also  recommended  that 
she  read  the  Bible,  but  she  could  find  nothing  in  it  that  brought 
her  peace  of  mind.  It  seemed  that  she  had  a  wound  in  her  soul 
that  would  not  heal.  Long  after  she  had  abandoned  Benjamin 
Dorn  and  his  cheap  sanctimoniousness,  he  imagined  that  she  still 
loved  him  and  looked  up  to  him.  She  managed,  however,  to  come 
into  his  presence  only  on  the  rarest  occasions,  and  then  she  never 
spoke  to  him. 

Divine  worship  in  the  Protestant  church  seemed  to  her  like  a 
sort  of  bargain  day  on  which  the  people  assembled  to  do  business 
with  Heaven  instead  of  on  work  days.  She  missed  the  dignity; 
the  sermons  left  her  cold;  the  ritual  made  not  the  slightest  appeal 
to  her. 


INSPECTOR  JORDAN  AND  HIS  CHILDREN      87 

She  never  heard  from  any  one  at  any  time  a  single  sentence  that 
really  enlightened  her  or  remained  fixed  in  her  memory.  It  was 
the  jejune  insipidity  of  an  entire  age,  the  stale  flatness  of  the 
world  that  she  felt  to  the  very  depths  of  her  soul.  If  she  wished 
to  make  her  heart  glow,  if  she  became  unusually  fearful  of  the 
empty  air  and  the  empty  day,  she  stole  secretly  into  the  Church 
of  Our  Lady  or  into  St.  Sebaldus,  where  the  house  of  God  was 
more  solemnly  decorated,  where  there  were  more  lights  burning, 
where  the  prayers  had  a  more  mysterious  sound,  the  priests  seemed 
to  be  more  affected  by  what  they  were  doing,  and  where  the  wor- 
shipper could  sense  the  awful  meaning  of  life  and  death. 

All  external  beauty,  however,  was  repulsive  to  her.  She  hated 
even  beautiful  scenery  and  fair  weather,  regarding  them  as  tempta- 
tions to  mortal  man  intended  to  lead  him  into  some  sort  of  folly. 
She  loved  nothing  about  herself,  neither  her  face  nor  her  voice. 
She  was  indeed  frightened  at  the  sound  of  her  own  deep  voice. 
She  did  not  like  her  hair,  nor  had  she  any  use  for  her  hands. 

One  winter  evening  she  took  from  her  fund  the  gold  ring,  an 
heirloom  from  her  mother,  presented  to  her  by  her  father,  and 
threw  it  into  the  creek.  Then  she  bowed  down  over  the  ledge, 
and  seemed  to  feel  as  if  she  had  relieved  her  soul  of  a  great 
burden. 

Eleanore  tried  time  and  time  again  to  come  near  her  sister,  but 
each  time  she  was  thrust  back.  Though  Gertrude  never  conversed 
with  people,  every  word  that  was  said  about  Eleanore  reached  her 
ears;  she  felt  ashamed  of  her  sister.  She  could  not  bear  the 
looks  of  Eleanore,  took  an  intense  dislike  to  her,  and  in  the  end 
was  obliged  to  summon  all  her  courage  in  order  to  return  her 
greeting.  It  was  impossible  for  her,  however,  to  reproach  Eleanore; 
for  that  she  did  not  have  sufficient  command  of  language.  In 
truth,  her  control  of  words  was  exceedingly  limited.  Everything, 
grief  as  well  as  injustice,  she  was  forced  to  stifle  within  her  own 
soul.  She  grieved  about  Eleanore,  and  became  at  the  same  time 
more  and  more  nervous  and  excited.  It  seemed  that  something 
about  her  sister  was  tantalising  her,  drawing  her  on,  worrying  her, 
making  her  lose  sleep. 

Her  restlessness  became  so  great  that  she  could  no  longer  sit 
at  the  quilting  frame;  in  fact,  it  was  no  longer  possible  for  her 
to  do  any  kind  of  exacting  work.  Something  drew  her  out  of  the 
house,  and  once  she  was  away,  something  forthwith  drew  her 
back  home.  Her  heart  beat  violently  when  she  was  alone,  and 
yet,  if  her  father  or  brother  or  Eleanore  came  in,  she  could  not 


88  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

stand  their  presence,  and  took  refuge  in  her  own  room.  If  it  was 
hot,  she  closed  the  windows;  if  it  was  cold,  she  opened  them  and 
leaned  out.  If  it  was  quiet,  she  was  filled  with  fear;  if  it  was  not 
quiet,  she  longed  for  peace.  She  could  not  say  her  prayers;  she 
had  none  to  say;  her  mind  and  soul  were  muted,  muffled,  dumb. 
She  felt  the  hours  following  each  other  in  regular  order  as  some- 
thing terrible;  she  wanted  to  skip  over  years,  just  as  one  might 
skip  over  pages  of  a  tiresome  book.  And  when  the  worst  came 
to  the  worst,  and  she  did  not  know  what  on  earth  to  do,  she  ran 
to  the  Church  of  Our  Lady,  threw  herself  prostrate  before  the 
hjgh  altar,  buried  her  face,  and  remained  perfectly  motionless 
until  her  soul  had  found  greater  peace. 

Something  made  her  go  to  Eleanore;  she  did  not  want  to  do  it, 
but  she  could  not  help  it.  She  was  naturally  vigilant,  and  she 
wished  to  ward  off  misfortune  if  possible.  She  was  obsessed  with 
an  uncanny  feeling,  a  gruesome  curiosity.  She  dogged  her  sister's 
steps  in  secret.  One  time  she  saw  from  a  distance  that  Eleanore 
had  started  off  with  a  man  who  had  been  waiting  for  her.  She 
could  not  move  from  the  spot;  Eleanore  caught  sight  of  her. 

The  next  day  Eleanore  came  to  her  voluntarily,  and  told  her 
quite  candidly  of  her  relation  to  Eberhard  von  Auffenberg.  Con- 
cerning what  she  knew  of  Eberhard's  fate  she  said  nothing;  she 
merely  indicated  that  he  was  extremely  unhappy.  She  told  her 
how  she  had  met  him  the  previous  winter  on  the  Dutzendteich  at 
the  ice  carnival,  how  he  ran  after  her,  how  glad  she  was  to  show 
him  a  little  friendship,  and  how  much  he  needed  friendship. 

Gertrude  was  silent  for  a  long  while.  Finally  she  said,  with  a 
voice  so  deep  that  it  seemed  to  have  burst  from  being  too  full: 
"You  two  either  must  get  married,  or  you  must  not  see  each  other 
any  more.  What  you  are  doing  is  a  crime." 

"A  crime?"  said  Eleanore  astonished,  "how  so?" 

"Ask  your  conscience,"  was  the  answer,  spoken  with  eyes  riveted 
on  the  ground. 

"My  conscience  is  quite  clear." 

"Then  you  have  none,"  said  Gertrude  harshly.  "You  lie,  and 
you  are  being  lied  to.  You  are  sunk  in  sin;  there  is  no  hope  for 
you.  That  man's  evil  looks!  His  ugly  thoughts!  And  the 
thoughts  of  the  other  men!  They  are  all  beyond  redemption. 
You  are  spotted  through  and  through.  You  don't  know  it,  but 
I  do." 

She  got  up,  kicked  the  chair  from  her  with  her  heels,  and  stared 
at  Eleanore  with  her  mysterious  black  eyes:  "Never  mention  this 


INSPECTOR  JORDAN  AND  HIS  CHILDREN      89 

to  me  again,"  she  whispered  with  trembling  lips,  "never,  never!" 
With  that  she  went  out. 

Eleanore  felt  something  like  actual  loathing  for  her  own  sister. 
Filled  with  an  indescribable  foreboding,  she  detected  in  Gertrude 
the  adversary  that  fate  had  marked  out  for  her. 


XIV 

When  the  autumn  days  came  on  and  it  began  to  get  cold,  Daniel 
was  a  frequent  visitor  at  Jordan's.  Although  he  had  a  warm 
stove  now  of  his  own,  he  took  pleasure  in  remembering  the  com- 
fortable corner  of  a  year  ago.  He  had  a  greater  affection  for 
things  and  rooms  than  he  had  for  human  beings. 

It  was  rare  that  he  came  in  contact  with  Jordan,  for  now  that 
he  was  no  longer  with  the  Prudentia,  it  was  hard  to  locate  him: 
he  was  doing  odd  jobs  for  a  number  of  concerns,  and  this  kept 
him  more  or  less  on  the  go.  Benno  came  home  after  office  hours, 
only  to  betake  himself  to  his  room,  where  he  shaved  and  made 
himself  as  elegant-looking  as  possible  for  the  social  engagements  of 
the  evening.  He  did  not  like  to  be  alone  with  Gertrude,  so  he 
never  came  until  after  six  o'clock,  when  he  knew  that  Eleanore 
would  be  at  home.  Realising  that  Eleanore  was  diligently  pur- 
suing the  study  of  French  and  English,  and  that  her  evenings 
were  therefore  of  great  value  to  her,  he  begged  her  not  to  be 
disturbed  by  his  visits.  He  said  that  he  found  nothing  so  agree- 
able as  sitting  still  and  saying  nothing.  After  an  hour  or  two, 
however,  he  left,  murmuring  an  indistinct  farewell  as  he  did  so. 

At  times  he  would  bring  a  book  with  him  and  read.  If  he 
chanced  to  look  up,  he  saw  Eleanore  bending  over  the  writing 
table,  her  hair,  bathed  in  a  flood  of  golden  light  from  the  lamp, 
falling  in  fine  silken  threads  over  her  temples,  while  her  mouth 
was  firmly  closed,  her  lips  inclined  to  droop  at  the  corners,  but  in 
a  lovely  fashion.  Then  he  saw  Gertrude.  She  did  not  wear  her 
hair  loose;  she  put  it  up  in  a  tight  knot  above  her  neck.  Her 
dress  was  no  longer  the  Nile  green;  it  was  made  of  brown  cloth, 
and  on  the  front  was  a  row  of  glistening  black  buttons. 

At  times  Eleanore  would  make  some  remark  to  him,  and  he 
would  reply.  At  times  the  remarks  between  the  two  spun  out  into 
a  verbal  skirmish.  Eleanore  teased,  and  he  was  gruff;  or  he 
mocked,  and  Eleanore  delivered  a  curtain  lecture.  Gertrude  would 
sit  with  an  expression  of  helpless  amazement  on  her  face,  and  look 
at  the  window.  She  purposely  remained  unoccupied;  she  pur- 


90  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

posely  postponed  her  household  duties.  The  thought  of  leaving 
the  two  alone  in  the  room  was  unbearable. 

What  Daniel  did  and  said,  how  he  walked  or  sat  or  stood,  how 
he  put  his  hands  in  his  pockets  and  smacked  his  lips,  all  this  and 
more  aroused  a  sense  of  fear  and  shame  in  her.  She  regarded  his 
candour  as  impudent  presumption;  she  looked  upon  his  capricious- 
ness  as  malevolent  irrationality;  his  indifferent  manners  and  his 
disposition  to  slander  she  felt  certain  were  of  a  piece  with  the 
scorn  of  the  devil. 

On  one  occasion  he  dropped  a  caustic  remark  about  the  bigots 
who  contend  that  God  is  a  moralising  censor.  Having  this  phase 
of  ethics  under  discussion,  he  also  paid  his  respects  n  those  people 
who  look  upon  every  worm-eaten  pastor  as  an  archangel.  Gertrude 
got  up  with  a  jerk,  and  stared  at  him.  He  stood  his  ground;  he 
merely  shrugged  his  shoulders.  Gertrude  whispered:  "Men  with- 
out faith  are  worse  than  contagious  diseases." 

Daniel  laughed.  Then  he  became  serious,  and  asked  her  what 
she  understood  by  faith.  He  wanted  to  know  whether  she  felt 
that  faith  was  a  matter  of  lip  service.  She  replied,  with  bowed 
head,  that  she  could  not  discuss  sacred  matters  with  a  man  who 
had  renounced  all  religion.  Daniel  told  her  that  her  remark  was 
slanderous.  He  wanted  to  know  whether  she  had  ever  taken  the 
pains  to  find  out  precisely  how  lie  stood  in  matters  of  religion, 
and  if  not,  was  this  the  jeason  she  passed  such  final  judgment  on 
him  with  such  suddenness  and  conviction.  He  asked  her  point 
blank  whether  she  was  quite  certain  that  her  so-called  faith  was 
better  than  his  so-called  unfaith.  Not  content  with  this,  he  asked 
where  she  got  her  authority,  her  courage,  her  feeling  of  security; 
whether  she  felt  she  had  evidence  to  prove  that  she  had  carefully 
examined  his  soul;  and  whether  she  had  at  any  time  interviewed 
God. 

He  laughed  again,  whistled,  and  left. 

Gertrude  remained  motionless  for  a  while,  her  eyes  fixed  on  the 
floor.  Eleanore  supported  her  chin  on  her  hand,  and  looked  at 
her  compassionately.  Gertrude  began  to  tremble  in  her  whole 
body,  and,  without  raising  her  head,  she  stretched  out  her  arms  to 
Eleanore.  Though  quite  unable  to  interpret  this  accusing  gesture, 
Eleanore  was  terrified. 

The  next  time  Daniel  came,  he  resumed  his  seat  by  the  stove, 
and  remained  silent  for  a  while.  Then,  without  the  slightest 
warning  or  apparent  motivation,  he  began  to  discuss  religion.  And 
howr  With  the  old  spirit  of  defiance,  as  if  from  an  ambuscade 


INSPECTOR  JORDAN  AND  HIS  CHILDREN     91 

from  which  he  could  send  out  his  poisoned  arrows,  with  calculating 
maliciousness  and  cold  rebellion,  with  the  air  of  a  man  who  has 
been  defeated,  who  is  now  being  pursued,  and  who  is  willing  to 
concede  more  to  the  earthly  order  of  things  than  to  the  divine. 
Thus  he  sat,  1\2  incarnation  of  blasphemy,  and  once  more  shuffled 
the  features  of  his  face  until  he  looked  like  the  sedulous  ape. 

Eleanore  felt  that  he  uvs  denying;  both  himself  and  God,  and 
that  with  violence.  She  went  over  13  him,  and  laid  her  hand  on 
his  shoulder.  Gertrude,  a  death-like  pallor  playing  over  her  face, 
got  up,  passed  by  her  and  Daniel,  and  did  not  appear  again  that 
evening.  Nor  did  she  appear  the  following  evening.  From  that 
time  on  she  avoided  his  presence. 

For  one  remarkable  second  and  no  longer,  Daniel  fixed  his  eyes 
on  the  shape  of  Gertrude's  legs.  He  became  suddenly  conscious  of 
the  fact  that  she  was  a  woman,  and  he  was  a  man.  During  this 
second,  one  of  the  rarest  of  his  life,  he  perceived  the  outer  surface 
of  her  body,  but  without  the  enveloping  clothes.  He  thought  of 
her  as  a  nude  figure.  It  lasted  only  a  second,  but  he  pictured  her 
to  himself  as  a  nude.  Everything  she  had  said  and  done  fell  from 
her  like  so  much  clothing. 

He  had  a  feeling  that  his  eyes  had  been  opened;  that  he  had 
really  seen  for  the  first  time  in  his  life;  and  that  what  he  now 
saw  was  the  body  of  the  world. 

The  nude  picture  followed  him.  He  fought  against  his  dis- 
quietude. Nothing  like  this  had  ever  happened  to  him  before. 
He  conjured  up  the  picture  in  order  to  destroy  it  with  coolness 
and  composure;  but  it  would  not  be  destroyed,  nor  would  it  vanish. 
One  day  he  chanced  to  meet  Gertrude  by  the  beautiful  fountain. 
He  stopped,  stood  as  if  petrified,  and  forgot  to  speak  to  her. 

xv 

It  was  a  cold,  clear  day  in  the  middle  of  December.  Eleanore 
wanted  to  go  skating  after  dinner.  She  was  known  in  the  entire 
city  for  her  skill  on  the  ice.  An  irrepressible  vivacity  and  sense 
of  freedom  pulsed  through  her  body.  It  seemed  to  her  lamentable 
that  she  should  have  to  sit  down  in  the  overheated,  sticky  air  of 
the  office  among  all  those  clerks,  and  write. 

She  went,  nevertheless,  to  the  office,  took  her  place  among  the 
clerks,  and  wrote  as  usual.  Herr  Zittel's  eyes  shone  through  the 
lenses  of  his  spectacles  like  two  poison  flasks.  But  she  did  not 
make  much  progress;  time  dragged;  it  dragged  even  more  heavily 


92  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

and  slowly  than  Herr  Diruf's  feet,  as  he  made  his  rounds  through 
the  room.  Eleanore  looked  up.  She  felt  as  if  his  gloomy  eyes 
were  resting  on  her.  Conscious  of  having  failed  to  perform  her 
duty  23  fhe  might  have  done,  she  blushed. 

Finally  the  clock  struck  six.  The  other  clerks  left,  making  much 
noise  as  they  did  so.  Eleanore  waited  as  usual  until  they  had  all 
gone,  for  she  did  rot  like  to  mix  with  them.  Just  then  Benjamin 
Dorn  came  wabbling  in:  "The  Chief  would  like  to  speak  to  Frau- 
lein  Jordan,"  he  said,  and  bent  his  long  neck  like  a  swan.  Eleanore 
was  surprised:  what  on  earth  could  Herr  Diruf  want  with  her? 
Possibly  it  had  to  do  with  Benno. 

Alfons  Diruf  was  sitting  at  his  desk  as  she  entered.  He  wrote 
one  more  line,  and  then  stared  at  her.  There  was  something  in 
his  expression  that  drove  the  blood  from  her  cheeks.  Involuntarily 
she  looked  down  at  herself  and  felt  her  flesh  creep. 

"You  wanted  to  see  me,"  she  said. 

"Yes,  I  wanted  to  see  you,"  he  replied,  and  made  a  weary  attempt 
to  smile. 

There  was  another  pause.  In  her  anxiety  Eleanore  looked  first 
at  one  object  in  the  room  and  then  at  another;  first  at  the  bathing 
nymph,  then  at  the  silk  curtains,  then  at  the  Chinese  lampshade. 

"Well,  sweetheart,"  said  Herr  Diruf,  his  smile  gradually  chang- 
ing into  a  sort  of  convulsion,  "we  are  not  bad,  are  we?  By  the 
beard  of  the  prophet,  we  are  all  right,  aren't  we?  Hunh?" 

Eleanore  lowered  her  head.  She  thought  she  had  misunderstood 
him:  "You  wanted  to  see  me,"  she  said  in  a  loud  voice. 

Diruf  laid  his  hand,  palm  down,  on  the  edge  of  his  desk. 
His  solitaire  threw  off  actual  sparks  of  brilliancy.  "I  can  crush 
every  one  of  you,"  he  said,  as  he  shoved  his  hand  along  the  edge 
of  the  desk  toward  Eleanore.  "That  boy  out  there,  your  brother, 
is  an  underhanded  sharper.  If  I  want  to  I  can  make  him  turn  a 
somersault,  believe  me."  He  shoved  his  fat  hand  a  little  farther 
along,  as  if  it  were  some  dangerous  engine  and  his  solitaire  a 
signal  lamp.  "I  can  make  the  whole  pack  of  you  dance  whenever 
I  want  to.  Can't  I,  sweetheart?  Capita?  Comprenez-vous?" 

Eleanore  looked  into  Alfons  Diruf's  smeary  eyes  with  unspeak- 
able amazement. 

Diruf  got  up,  walked  over  to  her,  and  put  his  arms  around  her 
shoulders.  "Well,  if  the  boy  is  a  sweet-toothed  tom-cat  who  can 
easily  be  led  astray,  you  are  a  purring  pussy-cat,"  he  said  with  a 
tone  of  terrible  tenderness,  and  held  the  girl  so  tight  in  his  arms 


INSPECTOR  JORDAN  AND  HIS  CHILDREN      93 

that  she  could  not  possibly  move.  "Now  be  quiet,  sweetheart; 
be  calm,  my  little  bosom;  don't  worry,  you  little  devil!" 

Horror,  hot  and  cold,  came  over  her,  and  filled  her  with  un- 
namable  dismay.  Contact  with  the  man  had  a  more  gruesome 
effect  on  her  than  anything  she  had  ever  even  dreamed  of.  One 
jerk  as  though  it  were  a  matter  of  life  and  death,  and  she  was 
free.  White  as  a  sheet,  she  nevertheless  stood  there  before  him, 
and  smiled.  It  was  a  rare  smile,  something  quite  beyond  the 
bounds  of  what  is  ordinarily  called  a  smile.  Alfons  Diruf  was  no 
longer  fat  and  fierce;  he  was  like  a  pricked  bubble;  he  was  done 
for.  And  finding  himself  alone,  he  stood  there  for  a  while  and 
gaped  at  the  floor.  He  looked  and  felt  hopelessly  stupid. 

Eleanore  hastened  through  the  streets,  and  suddenly  discovered 
that  she  was  in  the  Long  Row.  She  turned  around.  Benda,  then 
on  the  way  over  to  call  on  Daniel,  caught  sight  of  her,  recognised 
her  by  the  light  of  the  gas  lamp,  stopped  as  she  passed  by  him, 
and  looked  after  her  not  a  little  concerned. 

When  she  reached  home,  she  sank  down  on  the  sofa  exhausted. 
To  rid  her  mind  of  the  memory  of  the  past  hour,  she  took  refuge 
in  her  longing,  longing  for  a  southern  country.  Her  longing  was 
so  intense,  her  desire  to  go  south  so  fervent,  that  her  face  shone 
as  if  in  fever.  But  the  glass  case  had  at  last  been  broken. 

The  bell  rang  shortly  before  eight;  she  said  to  Gertrude:  "If  it 
5s  Daniel,  send  him  away.  I  cannot  see  any  one  this  evening." 

"Are  you  ill?"  asked  Gertrude  with  characteristic  sternness. 

"I  don't  know;  I  simply  do  not  want  to  see  anybody,"  said 
Eleanore,  and  smiled  again  as  she  had  smiled  in  Diruf's  office. 

It  was  Daniel,  to  be  sure.  Benda  had  told  him  that  he  had  seen 
Eleanore  out  in  front  of  the  house;  and  when  he  learned  that  she 
had  not  been  to  call  on  Daniel,  his  anxiety  increased.  "There  is 
something  wrong  here,"  he  said,  "you  had  better  go  see  her." 
After  they  had  talked  the  situation  over  for  a  while  Benda  accom- 
panied Daniel  as  far  as  ^gydius  Place,  in  order  to  make  sure  that 
he  inquired  after  Eleanore. 

Gertrude  opened  the  iron  door.  "Eleanore  does  not  want  you 
to  come  in,"  she  said,  with  a  trace  of  joy  in  her  eyes. 

"Why  not?      What  has  happened?" 

"She  does  not  wish  to  see  you,"  said  the  monosyllabic  Gertrude, 
and  gazed  into  the  light  of  the  hall  lamp. 

"Is  she  ill?" 

"No!" 


94  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

"Then  she  has  got  to  tell  me  herself  that  she  does  not  wish  to 
see  me." 

"Go!"  commanded  Gertrude  and  tossed  her  head  back. 

Her  gloomy  eyes  hung  on  his,  and  the  two  stood  there  for  a 
moment  opposite  each  other,  like  two  racers  who  have  come  in  at  the 
same  goal  at  the  same  time  but  from  opposite  directions.  Daniel 
then  turned  around,  and  went  down  the  steps  in  silence.  Gertrude 
remained  standing  for  a  time,  her  head  sinking  deeper  and  deeper 
all  the  while  on  her  breast.  Suddenly  she  covered  her  face  with 
her  hands;  a  cold  shudder  ran  through  her  body. 


XVI 

Before  going  to  bed,  Eleanore  wrote  a  letter  to  Herr  Zittel 
informing  him  that  she  was  leaving  the  Prudentia  at  once. 

Lying  in  bed,  she  could  not  sleep.  She  saw  herself  on  the  ice 
cutting  bold  and  novel  figures.  The  spectators,  grouped  about  her 
in  a  wide  circle,  admired  her  skill.  She  saw  the  sea  with  fishing 
smacks  and  coloured  sails.  She  saw  gardens  full  of  roses. 

Her  father  and  Benno  had  come  home  long  ago.  She  heard 
the  bell  up  in  the  nearby  church  tower  strike  twelve — and  then 
one — and  then  two. 

She  heard  some  one  walking  back  and  forth  in  the  house;  she 
heard  some  one  opening  and  closing  a  door.  Then  the  steps  died 
away,  and  all  was  quiet.  She  got  up,  went  to  the  door,  and 
listened.  A  deep  sigh  reached  her  ear  from  the  next  room.  She 
opened  the  door  just  a  little,  without  making  the  slightest  noise, 
and  peeped  out  through  the  crack. 

Gertrude  was  standing  by  the  open  window;  she  was  in  her 
nightgown  and  bare  feet.  The  moon  was  shining  on  the  square 
in  front  of  the  house;  the  glitter  of  the  snow  on  the  roofs  made 
it  seem  quite  cold.  The  spooky  illumination  made  the  girl's  face 
look  spooky.  Her  loose  flowing  hair  looked  as  black  as  ebony. 

Eleanore  ran  into  the  room,  and  closed  the  window.  "What  on 
earth  are  you  doing,  Gertrude?"  she  exclaimed;  "are  you  getting 
ready  to  take  your  life?" 

Gertrude's  slender  body  shivered  in  the  cold;  her  toes  were  all 
bent  in  as  if  she  were  having  a  convulsion.  "Yes,"  she  said  with 
marked  moroscncss,  "that  is  what  I  would  like  to  do." 

"That's  what  you  would  like  to  do?"  replied  Eleanore,  also 
trembling  with  cold.  "And  your  father?  Haven't  you  the  slight- 
est consideration  for  him?  Do  you  want  to  give  him  more  worry 


INSPECTOR  JORDAN  AND  HIS  CHILDREN      95 

than  he  already  has?  What  is  the  matter  with  you,  you  crazy 
girl?" 

"I  am  a  sinner,  Eleanore,"  cried  Gertrude,  fell  on  her  knees, 
and  clasped  Eleanor  about  the  hips.  "I  am  a  sinner  " 

"Yes?  A  sinner?  What  sin,  pray,  have  you  committed?" 
asked  Eleanore,  and  bent  down  over  her. 

"Why  am  I  in  that  house  there,  in  that  prison?"  cried  Gertrude, 
and  clasped  her  hands  to  her  breast.  "Evil  has  come  over  me, 
evil  has  taken  possession  of  me.  I  have  evil  thoughts.  Look  at 
me,  Eleanore,  look  at  me!" 

Her  voice  had  now  mounted  to  the  pitch  of  a  piercing  shriek. 
Eleanore  stepped  back  from  her,  terror  stricken.  Gertrude  fell 
head  first  on  the  floor.  Her  hair  covered  her  bent  and  twitching 
back. 

The  door  leading  to  Jordan's  room  opened,  and  he  himself 
came  in  carrying  a  lighted  candle.  In  default  of  pajamas,  he  had 
thrown  a  chequered  shawl  around  his  shoulders,  the  fringes  of 
which  were  dangling  about  his  knees.  He  had  a  white-peaked 
night-cap  on  his  head. 

Quite  beside  himself,  he  Ipoked  at  the  two  girls  and  wanted 
to  say  something;  but  he  was  speechless.  When  much  worried 
he  would  always  smirk.  It  was  a  disagreeable  habit.  In  Eleanore 
it  always  aroused  a  feeling  of  intense  compassion.  "There  is  noth- 
ing wrong,  father,"  she  stammered,  and  made  an  awkward  gesture 
which  indicated  to  him  that  it  would  be  most  agreeable  to  her  if 
he  would  go  away.  "Gertrude  has  pains  in  her  stomach;  she  tried 
to  go  to  the  medicine  chest  to  get  a  f5w  drops.  Please  go,  father; 
I'll  put  her  to  bed." 

"I  will  go  to  the  doctor,  or  I  will  call  Benno  and  have  him 
go,"  said  Jordan. 

"No,  father,  it  is  not  necessary.     Please  go  away!" 

He  appreciated  Eleanore's  impatience  and  obediently  withdrew, 
shielding  the  light  of  the  candle  with  his  hand;  his  gigantic 
shadow  followed  along  behind  him  like  some  unclassified  animal. 

"Get  up,  Gertrude,  get  up  and  come  with  me!"  said  Eleanore. 

Gertrude  was  taken  back  to  her  room.  After  she  had  been  in 
bed  for  a  few  minutes,  there  was  a  knock  at  the  door.  It  was 
Jordan;  he  asked  how  she  felt.  Eleanore  told  him  everything 
was  all  right. 

Until  the  moon  had  disappeared  below  the  church  roof,  Eleanore 
sat  on  Gertrude's  bed,  and  held  her  mute  hand  in  her  own. 
Though  she  had  thrown  a  cloak  about  her  shoulders,  she  was  cold. 


96  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

Gertrude  lay  with  open,  lifeless  eyes.  Every  movement  of 
Eleanore's  face  revealed  the  changing  moods  of  her  soul:  she  was 
thinking  over  an  unending  series  of  grave  thoughts.  When  it 
became  quite  dark,  Gertrude  turned  her  face  to  Eleanore,  and  said 
softly:  "Please  get  in  bed  with  me,  Eleanore.  If  I  see  you  sleep- 
ing, possibly  I  can  sleep  too." 

Eleanore  laid  the  cloak  to  one  side,  and  slipped  in  under  the 
covers.  The  two  girls  cuddled  up  to  each  other,  and  in  a  few 
minutes  both  were  sound  asleep. 


VOICES  FROM  WITHOUT  AND  VOICES  FROM  WITHIN 


DANIEL  gradually  gained  followers.  Those  whom  the  "little 
slave"  won  over  to  his  cause  were  hardly  to  be  called  patrons: 
they  were  patriots.  They  were  delighted  at  the  thought  that  a 
maestro  should  have  been  born  and  risen  to  fame  in  soulful  old 
Franconia.  In  the  actual  life  of  their  protege  they  took  but  little 
interest. 

Daniel's  followers  were  young  people. 

Professor  Herold  was  a  strange  man.  His  reputation  reached  far 
beyond  the  boundaries  of  his  native  province,  and  yet,  owing  to 
his  whimsical  peculiarities,  he  had  not  the  slightest  desire  to  leave 
home.  On  such  sons  and  daughters  of  the  natives  as  were  diligent 
in  their  pursuit  of  musical  studies,  he  poured  out  the  whole  of  his 
sarcasm.  His  chief,  his  darling  ambition  was  to  wean  them  away 
from  their  fondness  for  worthless  music  and  clap-trap  performances 
of  it.  He  did  not  succeed:  you  were  not  considered  educated 
unless  you  could  play  the  piano,  and  in  the  homes  of  these  mer- 
chants education  was  highly  regarded. 

Enticed  by  his  name,  all  kinds  of  people  came  from  a  distance  to 
take  lessons  from  Professor  Herold.  Having  read  the  score  of 
"Vineta,"  he  said  to  two  of  these:  "Fetch  me  that  fellow  dead  or 
alive."  And  they  fetched  him. 

The  two  came  more  frequently  to  Daniel,  and  then  others, 
pupils  of  Professors  Wackerbarth  and  Doderlein.  At  times  he 
would  take  luncheon  with  them  in  the  students'  restaurant.  We 
will  call  them  the  long-haired,  or  the  pale-faced.  Many  of  them 
looked  like  snake-charmers.  They  were  almost  without  exception 
hopelessly  stupid,  but  they  all  had  some  kind  of  a  bee  in  their 
bonnet. 

There  were  some  young  girls  among  them;  we  will  call  them 
the  dreamy-eyed,  or  the  lost-in-dreams.  Daniel  had  no  use  for 
them  whatsoever.  His  patience  with  the  long-haired  was  equally 
lacking. 

He  told  "the  old  man,"  as  Professor  Herold  was  called,  of  his 
antipathy  to  these  students.  Professor  Herold  snapped  like  a 

97 


98  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

vicious  dog,  brushed  the  white  bristles  back  over  his  enormous  head, 
and  said:  "Well,  my  young  original,  you  have  made  a  discovery. 
Don't  you  know  that  music  cajoles  into  its  magic  circle  the  very 
riff-raff  of  any  community:1  Don't  you  know  that  music  is  a 
subterfuge  for  the  neglect  of  human  duty?  Don't  you  know  that 
the  voluptuous  fumes  it  spreads  over  the  cities  results  in  the  general 
corrosion  and  consumption  of  men's  hearts?  Don't  you  know 
that  of  every  five  hundred  so-called  artists,  four  hundred  and 
ninety-nine  are  nothing  but  the  cripple  guard  of  God  above? 
Therefore  he  who  does  not  come  to  music  with  the  holiest  fire 
burning  in  the  depths  of  his  soul  has  his  blood  in  time  transformed 
by  it  into  glue,  his  mind  into  a  heap  of  rubbish." 

Whereat  he  pushed  Daniel  out  of  the  door,  so  that  he  might 
work  undisturbed  on  his  little  pictures.  Of  these  the  walls  of  his 
room  were  full.  He  painted  them  in  his  leisure  hours.  They 
were  small  in  size,  and  smaller  still  in  merit;  but  he  was  proud 
of  them.  They  represented  scenes  from  country  life. 


On  New  Year's  Eve,  Dormaul,  the  impresario,  gave  a  dinner  in 
the  Little  Swan,  to  which  he  invited  Daniel.  Dormaul  was  quite 
well  disposed  toward  Daniel.  He  said  he  had  recognised  the  young 
man's  talents  at  the  sight  r  f  his  very  first  note.  He  promised  to 
publish  "Vineta"  and  also  the  work  Daniel  had  finished  in  the 
meantime,  entitled  "Nuremberg  Serenade."  He  also  seemed  in- 
clined to  consider  favourably  Daniel's  appointment  in  his  newly 
founded  opera  company. 

Among  th'v-i  present  at  the  dinner  were  Professors  Herold  and 
Wackerbarth,  Wurzelmann,  a  few  of  the  long-haired  and  a  few 
of  the  lost-in-dreams.  Andreas  Doderlein  had  promised  to  come 
in  later.  He  appeared,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  five  minutes  before 
midnight,  and  stood  in  the  wide-opened  door  as  ceremonious  as 
the  New  Year  itself. 

He  went  up  to  Daniel,  and  extended  him  his  right  hand. 

"Look  who's  here!  Our  Benjamin  and  our  John,  not  to  men- 
tion our  Daniel,"  he  said,  glancing  at  the  last  of  the  trio.  "Con- 
gratulations, my  young  star!  What  do  the  annals  from  Andreas 
Doderlein's  nose  for  news  have  to  report?  Back  in  Bayreuth, 
when  we  used  to  draw  our  wine  by  the  flask,  he  merely  had  to 
sniffle  around  a  bit  to  know  just  how  things  were.  Isn't  that  true, 
Benjamin?" 


VOICES  FROM  WITHOUT  AND  WITHIN      99 

Nobody  denied  it.  Benjamin  let  right  yield  to  mercy.  The 
mighty  man  removed  his  storm-cape  from  his  shoulders  as  though 
it  were  ermine  he  were  doffing  before  condescending  to  associate 
with  ordinary  mortals. 

Professor  Wackerbarth  had  a  wife  who  beat  him  and  gave  him 
nothing  to  eat:  he  regarded  this  as  a  rare  opportunity  to  eat  his 
fill  and  have  a  good  time  generally.  But  it  was  a  poor  sort  of  a 
good  time. 

One  of  the  long-haired  sang  the  champagne  song,  and  Wurzel- 
mann  made  a  witty  speech.  Doderlein  suggested  that  now  was  the 
time  to  let  the  mice  dance  and  the  fleas  hop.  When  one  of  the 
lost-5n-dreams  sang  David's  March,  which  according  to  the  rules 
of  Bayreuth  could  not  be  classed  as  real  music,  Doderlein  exclaimed: 
"Give  me  Lethe,  my  fair  one."  By  "Lethe"  he  meant  punch. 

Daniel  drank  Lethe  too.  He  embraced  old  Herold,  shook  hands 
with  Andreas  Doderlein,  and  tried  to  waltz  with  Wurzelmann. 
He  was  not  drunk;  he  was  merely  happy. 

Then  it  became  too  close  for  him  in  the  room.  He  took  his 
hat,  put  on  his  overcoat,  and  hurried  out. 

The  air  was  warm,  mild.  A  south  wind  was  blowing.  Heaven 
above,  heaven  below,  the  houses  were  standing  on  clouds.  One 
breath  made  him  thirsty  for  the  next  one.  There  was  a  bay- 
window;  it  was  so  beautiful  that  he  felt  like  kneeling  before  it. 
There  was  a  fountain;  it  was  so  snug  and  exotic  that  it  seemed 
like  a  poem.  There  were  the  arches  of  the  bridge;  in  them  was 
the  dim  reflection  of  the  water.  There  were  two  towers;  they 
were  as  delicate  as  a  spider's  web. 

He  rejoiced  and  exclaimed:  "Oh  world,  art  thou  real?  Art 
thou  my  world,  and  am  I  living  in  thee?  My  world,  my  year, 
my  time,  and  I  in  it  all,  I  myself!" 

in 

He  stood  on  ^gydius  Place,  and  looked  up  at  the  windows  in 
Jordan's  house.  They  were  all  dark. 

He  wanted  to  call  out,  but  the  name  that  was  on  his  lips  filled 
him  with  anxiety.  The  passionate  flutter  of  his  heart  almost  tore 
his  breast  asunder. 

He  had  to  do  something;  he  had  to  speak;  he  had  to  ask  ques- 
tions and  hear  a  human  voice.  Consequently,  he  hurried  out  to 
the  Full,  stood  under  Benda's  window,  and  called  Benda's  name. 
The  clocks  struck  three. 


ioo  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

The  blinds  were  soon  drawn  to  one  side,  and  Benda's  stoutish 
figure  appeared  at  the  open  window.  "Daniel?  Is  it  you? 
What's  up?" 

"Nothing.      I  merely  wanted  to  bring  you  New  Year's  greetings." 

"Do  you  think  you  are  bringing  me  something  good?  Go  home 
and  go  to  bed." 

"Ah,  let  me  come  in  a  little  while,  Friedrich.  Let's  chat  for  a 
moment  or  two  about  happiness!" 

"Be  reasonable!  We  might  frighten  happiness  away  by  our 
talk." 

"Philistine!      Well,   give  me  your  blessing  at  least." 

"You  have  it.     Now  go,  night  owl,  and  let  the  people  sleep." 

Arrother  window  opened  on  the  ground  floor.  Herr  Carovius's 
desolate  nocturnal  physiognomy  appeared  at  the  window,  looked  up, 
looked  down  on  the  disturber  of  the  peace  on  the  street,  and  with 
one  mighty  grim,  grinning  sound  on  his  lips,  his  revengeful  fist 
swinging  in  the  meanwhile,  the  indignant  man  closed  the  window 
with  a  bang. 

Something  impelled  Daniel  to  return  to  ^Igydius  Place.  Again 
he  looked  up  at  the  windows,  this  time  beseechingly.  The  storm 
within  his  heart  became  more  violent.  For  a  long  time  he  ran 
through  the  streets,  and  reached  home  at  last  along  toward  five 
o'clock. 

As  he  passed  through  the  dark  hall,  he  saw  a  light  up  on  the 
landing.  Meta  was  carrying  it.  She  was  already  stirring  about, 
ready  to  begin  her  morning's  work.  He  hesitated;  he  looked  at 
her;  with  three  steps  he  was  by  her  side. 

"So  late?"  she  whispered  with  premonitory  embarrassment,  and 
began  to  finger  her  dress,  which  she  had  not  yet  buttoned  up. 

"Oh,  what  a  joy  to  take  hold  of  a  living  human  being  on  this 
glorious  day!"  he  exclaimed. 

She  offered  some  resistance,  but  when  he  tried  to  take  her  into 
her  room,  she  bent  her  body  backward,  and  thus  pressed  about 
his  wrist  She  was  still  carrying  the  light. 

"Oh,  if  you  only  knew  how  I  feel,  Meta.  I  need  you.  Hold 
me  tight  in  your  arms." 

She  made  no  more  resistance.  Perhaps  she  too  was  not  without 
her  fervent  desire.  Perhaps  it  was  the  time  of  day  that  made 
nature  more  insistent  thaa  usual.  Perhaps  she  was  suffering  from 
loneliness  in  the  company  of  the  three  sisters.  It  was  still  night 
and  dark;  but  for  her  it  was  already  day;  it  was  the  first  day  in 
the  year,  and  she  greeted  it  in  festive  mood.  She  yielded  to  him. 


VOICES  FROM  WITHOUT  AND  WITHIN     101 

She  was  a  virgin;  she  had  no  idea  of  the  responsibility  she  was 
taking  upon  herself.  Man  had  never  been  exactly  a  mystery  to 
her,  but  now  she  felt  for  the  first  time  the  congenerous  creature — 
and  she  gave  in  to  him. 

Daniel  returned  to  earth  after  having  knocked  at  the  portals 
of  the  gods  with  tremendous  wishes.  The  gods  smiled  their  pro- 
foundest  smile;  for  they  had  decided  to  have  an  especial  fate 
arise  from  this  hour. 


IV 

A  meeting  of  the  Social  Democrats  was  being  held  in  Gosten 
Court.  They  had  met  to  discuss  the  Chancellor's  speech  on  acci- 
dent insurance. 

The  first  speaker  was  Deputy  Storbecker.  But  his  voice  had  no 
carrying  power,  and  what  he  said  died-  away  almost  unheard. 

Jason  Philip  Schimmelweis  followed  him.  He  presented  a 
fearful  indictment  of  the  government.  The  official  representative 
of  the  government  advised  him  to  be  more  reserved,  whereupon  he 
reinvigorated  himself  with  a  draught  of  beer.  Then  he  hurled  the 
full  beaker  of  that  wrathful  scorn  for  which  his  heart,  beating  for 
the  people,  was  noted,  at  the  head  of  the  individual  who  was  first 
and  foremost  responsible  for  the  affairs  of  the  Empire.  He  did 
not  mention  Bismarck  by  name;  he  spoke  instead  of  a  certain  bogey. 
He  snatched  the  halo  from  his  head,  swore  that  he  would  some 
day  unmask  him  and  show  the  people  that  he  was  a  traitor,  branded 
his  fame  as  a  tissue  of  lies,  his  deeds  as  the  disgrace  of  the  century. 

The  venemous  and  eloquent  hatred  of  the  pudgy  little  man 
inflamed  the  minds  that  drank  in  his  oratory.  Jason  Philip  was 
greeted  with  a  tumult  of  applause  as  he  took  his  seat.  His  face 
was  a  bright  scarlet  red. 

The  leaders  of  the  party,  however,  were  noticeably  quiet.  In  a 
moment  or  two,  Deputy  Storbecker  returned  with  two  comrades 
eager  to  enter  into  a  debate  with  Jason  Philip.  He  followed  them 
into  a  side  room.  Exalted  at  the  thought  that  they  had  been  dele- 
gated to  express  to  him  the  gratitude  of  the  party  for  his  speech, 
he  smiled  the  smile  of  vanity  and  caressed  his  beard  with  his 
fingers. 

"What  is  the  matter,  gentlemen?  Why  are  you  so  serious? 
Did  I  go  too  far?  I  assume  complete  responsibility  for  everything 
I  said.  But  be  calm!  They  are  getting  afraid  of  us.  The  air 
has  a  dubious  odour.  The  French  are  becoming  cantankerous  again." 


102  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

"No,  Comrade  Schimmelweis,  that  is  not  it.  You  have  got  to 
vindicate  yourself.  You  are  a  Proteus,  Comrade  Schimmelweis. 
Your  right  hand  does  not  know  what  your  left  hand  is  doing. 
You  are  treating  us  disgracefully.  You  are  ploughing  in  the 
widow's  garden.  You  preach  water  and  guzzle  wine.  You  have 
entered  into  a  conspiracy  with  the  grafters  of  the  town.  You  are 
in  collusion  with  the  people  down  at  the  Prudentia,  and  you  are 
filling  your  own  coffers  in  this  gigantic  swindle.  From  morning 
to  night  you  enrich  yourself  with  the  hard-earned  pennies  of  the 
poor.  That  is  sharp  practice,  Jason  Philip  Schimmelweis,  sharp 
practice,  we  say.  Now  you  have  got  to  sever  all  connection  with 
the  Prudentia,  or  the  Party  is  going  to  kick  you  out." 

Then  it  was  that  Jason  Philip  Schimmelweis  rose  to  his  true 
heights  of  eloquence.  He  insisted  that  his  hands  were  clean,  his 
left  one  and  also  his  right  one;  that  he  was  working  in  the  interest 
of  a  good  cause;  and  that  threats  could  not  intimidate  him.  He 
made  it  plain  that  he  would  bow  to  no  dictatorship  operating  under 
the  mask  of  equality  and  fraternity.  He  cried  out  that  if  the 
people  wanted  a  scandal  they  could  have  it,  but  they  would  find 
him  armed  to  the  teeth.  And  he  assured  them  that  wherever  he 
went  in  this  wide,  wide  world,  he  would  find  the  doors  open  to 
welcome  him. 

He  then  made  a  sudden  about-face,  and  left  his  comrades  stand- 
ing. On  the  way  home  he  continued  to  murmur  murmurs  of 
embitterment  to  himself. 

Like  a  seasoned  sailor  eager  to  escape  the  storms  of  a  raging  sea, 
he  steered  his  good  ship  toward  other  and  more  hospitable  shores. 
Three  days  later  he  went  to  Baron  Siegmund  von  Auffenberg,  the 
leader  of  the  Liberals,  and  offered  him  his  services.  He  told  him 
that  he  was  willing  to  make  any  sacrifice  for  the  great  Liberal 
Party. 


For  thirty-five  minutes,  by  his  own  watch,  he  cooled  his  heels 
in  the  ante-chamber.  He  made  one  caustic  remark  after  another 
touching  on  the  arrested  development  of  the  feeling  of  equality 
among  the  rich.  Genuine  rebel  that  he  was,  he  did  not  repudiate 
himself  even  when  he  was  practising  high  treason. 

When  he  was  finally  taken  into  the  office,  he  was  not  blinded 
in  the  slightest  by  the  luxuriousness  of  the  furniture,  the  rugs,  or 
the  oil  paintings.  He  displayed  not  the  remotest  shimmer  of 


VOICES  FROM  WITHOUT  AND  WITHIN    103 

servility  on  meeting  the  illustrious  Baron.  He  sat  down  on  one 
of  the  chairs  with  complete  equanimity,  took  no  notice  of  the 
French-speaking  parrot,  and  never  cast  a  single  glance  at  the  break- 
fast table  covered  with  appetising  tid-bits.  But  he  did  present 
his  case  with  all  due  straightforwardness  and  simplicity. 

"Fine,"  said  the  Baron,  "fine!  I  hardly  believe  that  you  will 
find  it  necessary  to  make  a  radical  change  in  your  battlefront.  A 
conscienceless  agitator  you  have  never  been.  You  have  a  family,  a 
home  of  your  own;  your  affairs  are  in  good  condition;  and  in 
the  bottom  of  your  heart  you  love  order  and  discipline.  I  have 
in  truth  been  expecting  you  for  a  long  while.  Nor  am  I  exag- 
gerating when  I  confess  to  you  that  you  had  to  bolt,  sooner  or 
later." 

Jason  Philip  blushed  with  satisfaction.  With  the  bearing  of  a 
cabman  who  has  just  pocketed  his  tip,  he  replied:  "I  thank  you 
very  much,  Baron." 

"On  one  point  we  are  wholly  agreed,"  said  the  Baron,  "and  it 
seems  to  me  to  be  the  most  important — " 

"Quite  right,"  interrupted  Jason  Philip,  "you  allude  to  the 
fight  against  Bismarck.  Yes,  on  this  point  we  are,  I  hope,  of 
precisely  the  same  opinion.  I  will  do  my  part.  Hand  and  heart 
on  it,  Baron.  I  could  look  with  perfectly  cold  blood  on  this 
knight  of  obscurantism  writhing  on  the  rack." 

Herr  von  Auffenberg  heard  this  temperamental  statement  with 
noticeably  tenuous  reassurance.  He  smiled  just  a  little,  and  then 
said:  "Wait  a  minute,  my  friend,  don't  be  quite  so  savage."  He 
reached  for  his  smelling  salts,  held  them  to  his  nose,  and  closed 
his  eyes.  Then  he  got  up,  folded  his  hands  across  his  back,  and 
walked  up  and  down  the  room  a  few  times. 

What  he  said  after  this  was  as  familiar  to  him  as  the  letters  of 
the  alphabet.  While  Jason  Philip  gaped  at  his  lips  in  dumb 
inspiration,  the  Baron  himself  thought  of  things  that  had  not  the 
remotest  connection  with  what  he  said. 

"The  very  same  man  who  tried  to  make  the  new  Empire  in- 
habitable, with  the  aid  of  a  liberal  code  of  laws,  and  who  brought 
the  long-drawn-out  quarrel  between  the  Emperor  and  the  Pope 
to  a  happy  conclusion,  is  now  trying,  by  word,  thought,  and  deed, 
gradually  to  destroy  all  liberal  traditions  and  to  proclaim  the  Roman 
High  Priest  as  the  real  creator  of  peace.  All  that  the  German 
Chancellor  could  do  to  give  the  final  blow  to  liberalism  he  hag 
done.  The  reaction  has  not  hesitated  to  abandon  the  idea  of  the 
Kulturkamff  and  to  work  instead  in  the  interests  of  class  hatred 


104  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

and  racial  prejudice,  nurturing  them  even  with  deeds  of  violence. 
Faced  with  the  crimes  they  themselves  have  committed,  they  will 
see  their  own  children  despised  and  rejected." 

"Defeche-toi,  mon  bon  garfon,"  screeched  the  parrot. 

"I  am  happy  at  the  thought  of  having  snatched  a  precious  booty 
from  the  claws  of  anarchy,  and  of  having  won  a  new  citizen  for 
the  State,  my  dear  Herr  Schimmelweis.  But  for  the  time  being 
it  will  be  advisable  for  you  to  keep  somewhat  in  the  background. 
They  will  be  inclined  to  make  your  change  of  political  conviction 
the  subject  of  vociferous  attacks,  and  that  might  injure  the  cause." 


What  was  the  old  Baron  really  thinking  about  while  he  delivered 
this  political  speech? 

There  was  just  one  thought  in  his  mind;  the  same  sullen,  con- 
cealed anger  gnawed  incessantly  at  his  heart. 

He  thought  incessantly  of  his  son,  of  the  contempt  which  he 
had  experienced  because  of  him,  and  was  still  experiencing  daily, 
even  hourly,  because  of  the  fact  that  Eberhard  had  withdrawn  from 
his  power,  had  repudiated  him. 

He  could  not  get  over  the  fact  that  he  had  heaped  up  millions, 
and  that  Eberhard,  so  far  as  it  was  humanly  possible  to  calculate — 
and  in  accordance  with  the  law — would  some  day  fall  heir  to  a 
part  of  these  millions.  He  knew  very  little  about  poverty;  but 
his  poisoned  mind  could  think  of  nothing  else  than  the  satisfac- 
tion he  would  derive  from  being  able,  somehow,  to  deliver  this 
abortive  scion  of  his  own  name  and  blood  over  to  poverty.  Thus 
did  he  wish  to  take  vengeance;  thus  would  he  puni?h. 

But  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  wreak  vengeance  on  his  son  as 
he  would  have  liked  to:  between  the  execution  of  the  punishment 
and  himself  stood  the  law.  The  very  thought  that  his  riches  were 
increasing  daily,  hourly,  that  the  millions  he  had  were  creating  new 
millions  without  his  moving  a  finger,  that  he  could  not  even  stop 
the  flood  if  he  wished  to,  and  that  consequently  the  share  of  this 
disloyal,  rebellious,  and  hateful  son  was  becoming  larger  daily,  even 
hourly — this  thought  he  could  not  endure.  It  poisoned  his  peace 
of  mind,  paralysed  his  powers,  robbed  him  of  all  natural  and 
legitimate  joy,  and  enveloped  his  days  in  a  cloud  of  despair. 

A  modern  Midas,  he  transformed  everything  he  touched  into 
gold;  and  the  more  gold  he  had  the  sadder  his  life  became,  the 
more  revengeful  his  soul. 


VOICES  FROM  WITHOUT  AND  WITHIN     105 

The  tones  of  a  piano  reached  his  ear;  it  was  his  wife  who  was 
playing.  She  played  Mendelssohn's  "Song  Without  Words."  He 
shook  with  disgust;  for  of  all  things  repulsive,  music  was  to  him 
the  most  repulsive. 

"DepecAe-toi,  mon  bon  garfon,"  screeched  the  parrot. 


VII 

During  Jason  Philip's  absence,  poorly  dressed  people  frequently 
came  to  the  shop  and  demanded  that  Theresa  give  them  back  the 
money  they  had  paid  in  on  their  insurance. 

Some  of  them  became  very  much  excited  when  Theresa  told 
them  that  she  would  do  nothing  of  the  kind,  that  the  insurance 
was  the  affair  of  her  husband,  and  that  she  had  nothing  whatever 
to  do  with  it.  A  locksmith's  apprentice  had  given  a  sound  thrash- 
ing to  Zwanziger,  the  clerk,  who  had  hastened  up  to  protect  the  wife 
of  his  employer.  A  gold-beater  from  Fiirth  had  created  so  much 
excitement  that  the  police  had  to  be  called  in.  A  cooper's  widow, 
who  had  managed  to  pay  her  premiums  for  one  year,  but  had  been 
unable  to  continue  the  payment  for  the  quite  sufficient  reason  that 
she  had  been  in  the  hospital,  fell  head-long  to  the  floor  in  epileptic 
convulsions  when  she  heard  how  matters  stood. 

It  finally  reached  the  point  where  Theresa  was  frightened  every 
time  she  saw  a  strange  face.  She  breathed  more  easily  when  a 
day  had  passed  without  some  disagreeable  scene,  but  trembled  at 
the  thought  of  what  might  happen  on  the  day  to  come. 

What  disturbed  her  more  than  anything  else  was  the  inexplicable 
disappearance  of  small  sums  of  money;  this  had  been  going  on 
for  some  time.  A  man  came  into  the  office  once  and  laid  his 
monthly  premium,  one  taler  in  all,  on  the  counter.  When  he 
left,  Theresa  closed  the  door  behind  him  in  order  that  she  might 
be  able  to  watch  the  snow  storm  from  the  window.  When  she 
returned  to  the  desk  the  taler  had  disappeared.  She  asked  where 
it  was.  Jason  Philip,  who  was  just  then  handing  some  books  up 
the  ladder  to  Zwanziger,  became  so  gruff  that  one  might  have 
thought  she  had  accused  him  of  the  theft.  She  counted  the  money 
over  in  the  till,  but  in  vain;  the  taler  had  vanished. 

She  had  forgotten,  or  had  not  noticed,  that  Philippina  had  been 
in  the  office.  She  had  brought  her  father  his  evening  sandwiches, 
and  then  gone  out  again  without  making  the  slightest  noise;  she 
wore  felt  shoes. 

On  another  occasion  she  missed  a  number  of  groschcn  from  her 


106  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

purse.  On  still  another,  a  spice  merchant  came  in  and  demanded 
that  she  pay  a  bill  of  three  marks.  She  was  certain  she  had  already 
paid  it;  she  was  certain  she  had  given  Philippina  the  money  to  pay 
it.  Philippina  was  called  in.  She,  however,  denied  having  any- 
thing to  do  with  it,  and  acted  with  such  self-assurance  that  Theresa, 
completely  puzzled,  reached  down  in  her  pocket  and  handed  over 
the  three  marks  in  perfect  silence. 

She  had  suspected  the  maid,  she  had  suspected  the  clerk.  She 
even  suspected  Jason  Philip  himself;  she  thought  that  he  was 
appropriating  money  to  pay  his  drinking  expenses.  And  she  sus- 
pected Philippina.  But  in  no  case  could  she  produce  the  evidence; 
her  spying  and  investigating  were  in  vain.  Then  the  thieving 
stopped  again. 

For  Philippina,  who  had  been  doing  all  the  stealing,  feared 
she  might  be  discovered,  and  adopted  a  less  hazardous  method  of 
making  herself  a  rich  woman:  she  stole  books,  and  sold  them  to  the 
second-hand  dealer.  She  was  sly  enough  to  take  books  that  had 
been  on  the  shelves  for  a  long  while,  and  not  to  do  all  her  business 
with  one  dealer:  she  would  go  first  to  one  and  then  to  another. 

The  money  which  she  scraped  together  in  this  way,  as  secretly 
and  greedily  as  a  jack-daw,  she  hid  in  the  attic.  There  was  a 
loose  brick  in  the  wall  near  the  chimney.  This  she  removed;  and 
in  time  she  removed  other  bricks.  And  once  her  treasures  were 
safely  stored  in  the  hole,  she  would  replace  the  bricks  and  set  a 
board  up  against  them. 

When  everything  had  become  perfectly  quiet  and  she  felt  wholly 
at  ease,  she  would  sit  down,  fold  her  hands,  and  give  herself  up 
to  speechless  meditation,  an  evil  and  fanatic  dream  playing  over 
her  features  as  she  did. 


VIII 

One  evening  in  February,  Theresa  and  Philippina  chanced  to  be 
sitting  by  the  lamp  mending  the  week's  wash.  Jason  Philip  entered 
the  room;  there  was  a  sheepish  expression  on  his  face;  he  rubbed 
his  hands. 

Since  Theresa  did  not  consider  it  worth  her  trouble  to  ask  him 
why  he  was  in  such  a  good  humour,  he  suddenly  laughed  out  loud 
and  said:  "Now  we  can  pack  up,  my  dear.  1  see  it  in  writing: 
The  wonder  of  the  age,  or  the  humiliated  relatives.  A  touching 
tableau  presented  by  Hcrr  Daniel  Nothafft  of  the  Schimmelweis 
family." 


VOICES  FROM  WITHOUT  AND  WITHIN    107 

"I  do  not  understand  you;  you  are  talking  like  a  harlequin 
again,"  said  Theresa. 

"Compositions  by  Daniel  are  going  to  be  played  in  a  public  con- 
cert," Philippina  informed  her  mother  with  that  old,  harsh  voice 
of  hers. 

"How  do  you  know?"  asked  Theresa,  in  a  tone  of  evident  dis- 
trust. 

"I  read  it  in  the  paper." 

"The  miracle  is  to  take  place  in  the  Harmony  Society,"  said 
Jason  Philip,  by  way  of  confirming  Philippina's  remark,  with  an 
expression  of  enigmatic  malevolence.  "There  is  to  be  a  public 
rehearsal  on  Thursday,  and  there  is  nothing  on  earth  that  can  keep 
me  away.  The  music  dealer,  Zierfuss,  has  given  me  two  tickets, 
and  if  you  want  to,  why  you  can  come  along  and  see  how  they 
make  a  local  hero  out  of  a  plain  loafer." 

"I?"  responded  Theresa,  in  a  tone  of  contemptuous  amazement, 
"not  one  step  will  I  take.  What  have  I  got  to  do  with  your  imbecile 
concerts? " 

"But  these  gentlemen  are  going  to  be  disillusioned,  terribly 
so,"  continued  Jason  Philip  in  a  threatening  tone.  "There  is 
still  a  certain  amount  of  common  sense  left,  just  as  there  are  means 
of  proceeding  against  a  common,  ordinary  swindler." 

Philippina  raised  her  head  in  the  mood  of  a  person  who  has 
come  to  a  sudden  decision:  "C'n  I  go  'long,  Pop?"  she  asked,  her 
ears  as  red  as  fire. 

It  was  more  than  a  request.  Jason  Philip  was  startled  at  the 
intractable  expression  on  the  girl's  face.  "Sure,"  he  said,  avoid- 
ing as  well  as  he  could  the  mute  opposition  on  the  part  of  Theresa, 
"but  take  a  whistle  along  so  that  you  can  make  cat  calls." 

He  sank  back  with  a  comfortable  sigh  on  his  chair,  and  stretched 
out  his  legs.  Philippina  knelt  down  and  took  off  his  boots.  He 
then  put  on  his  slippers.  Each  of  them  bore  a  motto  embroidered 
in  red.  On  the  left  one  were  the  words  "For  tired  father";  on 
the  right  one,  "Consolation." 

IX 

Eleanore  had  not  told  her  father  why  she  had  left  her  position 
with  Alfons  Diruf.  Nor  did  Jordan  ask  her  why  when  he  learned 
that  she  did  not  wish  to  speak  about  it.  He  suspected  that  there 
was  some  disagreeable  incident  back  of  it,  and  if  he  maintained  a 
strict  silence  it  was  because  he  feared  his  own  wrath  and  grief. 


io8  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

She  soon  found  another  position.  A  schoolmate  and  good  friend 
of  hers,  Martha  Degen,  the  daughter  of  the  pastry-baker,  had 
married  Herr  Riibsam,  a  notary  public  and  an  old  man  to  boot. 
Eleanore  visited  the  Riibsams  occasionally,  as  did  also  her  father; 
and  in  the  course  of  conversation  it  came  out  that  Herr  Riibsam 
needed  an  assistant  copyist.  Since  it  was  then  impossible  to 
give  Eleanore  a  desk  in  the  office,  she  was  allowed  to  do  all  her 
work  at  home. 

Friedrich  Benda  had  also  given  her  a  cordial  letter  of  recom- 
mendation to  Herr  Bock,  Counsellor  of  Archives,  who  was  just  then 
engaged  in  writing  a  voluminous  work  on  the  history  of  Nurem- 
berg. It  would  be  her  task  to  arrange  Herr  Bock's  muddled 
manuscript. 

It  was  a  laborious  undertaking,  but  she  learned  a  great  deal 
from  it.  Her  thirsty  mind  would  draw  nourishment  even  from 
dry  and  lifeless  subjects. 

She  was  seized  with  a  desire  to  fill  up  the  gaps  in  her  education. 
She  begged  Benda  first  for  this  book  and  then  for  that  one.  And 
after  having  written  the  whole  day  long,  she  would  often  sit 
down  and  read  until  late  at  night. 

Everything  she  came  in  contact  with  she  either  assimilated  or 
shook  off:  she  dragged  nothing  along  in  the  form  of  surface  im- 
pedimenta; it  became  a  part  of  her  being,  or  she  threw  it  to  one 
side. 

Daniel  had  not  called  for  a  long  while.  He  was  busy  with 
the  rehearsals  which  Wurzelmann  was  conducting.  Professor 
Doderlein  was  not  to  take  charge  of  the  orchestra  until  it  had  been 
thoroughly  drilled.  The  programme  was  to  consist  of  Daniel's 
works  and  the  "Leonore  Overture."  Wurzelmann  referred  to  the 
Beethoven  number  as  "a  good  third  horse  in  the  team." 

Daniel  also  had  a  lot  of  business  to  transact  with  the  impresario 
Dormaul:  the  company  was  to  go  on  the  road  in  March,  and  many 
things  had  to  be  attended  to.  The  contract  he  signed  was  for 
three  years  at  a  salary  of  six  hundred  marks  a  year. 

A  few  days  before  the  public  rehearsal  he  came  to  Jordan's  with 
three  tickets:  one  for  Jordan  himself  and  the  other  two  for  the 
sisters.  The  public  rehearsal  was  quite  like  a  regular  concert;  over 
a  hundred  persons  had  been  invited. 

Jordan  was  just  getting  ready  to  go  out.  "That  is  fine,  that 
is  great:  I  can  hear  some  more  music  now.  I  am  looking  for- 
ward to  the  concert  with  extreme  pleasure.  When  I  was  a  young 
fellow  I  rarely  missed  a  concert.  But  that  was  long  ago;  indeed, 


VOICES  FROM  WITHOUT  AND  WITHIN     109 

when  I  think  it  over  I  see  how  old  I  am.  The  years  pass  by  like 
milestones  on  the  highway  of  life.  Well,  Daniel,  I  thank  you, 
thank  you  very  much!" 

Eleanore's  joy  was  also  great.  As  soon  as  her  father  had  gone, 
she  remarked  that  Daniel  had  looked  for  Gertrude;  but  she  had 
left  the  room  as  soon  as  she  saw  him  coming.  Eleanore  opened 
the  door,  and  cried:  "Gertrude,  come  in,  right  away!  I  have  a 
surprise  for  you." 

After  a  while  Gertrude  came  in. 

"A  ticket  for  you  to  Daniel's  concert,"  said  Eleanore,  radiant 
with  joy,  and  handed  her  the  green  card  of  admission. 

Gertrude  looked  at  Eleanore;  and  she  wanted  to  look  at  Daniel. 
But  her  heavy  glance,  slowly  rising  from  the  floor,  barely  reached 
his  face  before  it  returned  to  its  downward  position,  aggrieved 
and  pained.  Then  she  shook  her  head,  and  said:  "A  ticket  for  the 
concert?  For  me?  Are  you  serious,  Eleanore?"  Again  she  shook 
her  head,  amazed  and  indignant.  Whereupon  she  went  to  the 
window,  leaned  her  arm  against  the  cross  bars,  and  pressed  her 
head  against  her  arm. 

Daniel  followed  her  with  looks  of  glowing  anger.  "You  can 
take  sheep  to  the  slaughter,"  he  said,  "you  can  throw  thieves  in  a 
dungeon,  you  can  transport  lepers  to  a  hospital  for  incurables, 
but  you  cannot  force  an  emotional  girl  to  listen  to  music." 

He  became  silent;  a  pause  ensued.  Tortured  at  the  thought 
that  Daniel's  eyes  were  riveted  on  her  back,  Gertrude  turned 
around,  went  to  the  stove,  sat  down,  and  pressed  her  cheek  against 
the  Dutch  tiles. 

Daniel  took  two  steps,  stood  by  her  side,  and  exclaimed:  "But 
suppose  I  request  that  you  go?  Suppose  my  peace  of  mind  or 
something  else  of  importance  to  the  world,  consolation,  liberation, 
or  improvement,  depends  on  your  going?  Suppose  I  request  that 
you  go  for  one  of  these  reasons?  What  then?" 

Gertrude  had  become  as  pale  as  death.  She  looked  at  him  for 
a  moment,  then  turned  her  face  to  one  side,  drew  up  her  shoulders 
as  if  she  were  shivering  with  cold,  and  said:  "Well — then — then — 
I'll  go.  But  I  will  be  sorry  for  it  ...  sorry  for  it." 

Eleanore  was  a  witness  to  this  scene.  Her  eyes,  wide  open 
when  it  began,  grew  larger  and  larger  as  it  advanced  through  its 
successive  stages.  As  she  looked  at  Daniel  a  kindly,  languishing 
moisture  came  to  them,  and  she  smiled. 

Daniel,  however,  had  become  vexed.  He  mumbled  a  good- 
bye and  left.  Eleanore  went  to  the  window  and  watched  him 


no  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

as  he  ran  across  the  square,  holding  his  hat  with  both  hands  as  a 

shield  against  the  driving  wind. 

"He  is  an  amusing  fellow,"  she  said,  "an  amusing  fellow." 
She  then  lifted  her  eyes  to  the  clouds,  whose  swift  flight  above 

the  church  roof  pleased  her. 


It  was  the  original  intention  to  begin  the  regular  evening  con- 
cert with  the  third  "Fidelio  Overture."  Doderlein  was  of  the 
opinion  that  it  offered  no  special  difficulties:  the  general  rehearsal 
was  to  be  devoted  primarily  to  the  works  of  the  novice.  He 
raised  his  baton,  and  silence  filled  the  auditorium. 

The  "Nuremberg  Serenade"  opened  with  ensemble  playing  of 
the  wind  instruments.  It  was  a  jovial,  virile  theme  which  the 
violins  took  up  after  the  wind  instruments,  plucked  it  to  pieces 
in  their  capricious  way,  and  gradually  led  it  over  into  the  realm 
of  dreams.  The  night  became  living:  a  gentle  summer  wind  blew, 
glow  worms  flitted  about,  Gothic  towers  stood  out  in  the  sultry 
darkness,  plebeian  figures  crept  into  the  narrow,  angular  alleys; 
it  was  night  in  Nuremberg.  The  acclamation  a  glorious  past  with 
an  admonition  to  the  future  fell  upon  the  smug  complacency  of 
the  present,  the  heroic  mingled  with  the  jocose,  the  fantastic 
with  the  burlesque,  romanticism  found  its  counterpart,  and  all 
this  was  achieved  through  a  flood  of  genuine  melody  in  which 
stodginess  played  no  part,  while  charm  was  abundant  in  every  turn 
and  tune. 

The  professional  musicians  were  astonished;  and  their  astonish- 
ment was  vigorously  expressed  in  their  criticisms.  The  general 
admiration,  to  be  sure,  was  somewhat  deafened  by  the  unpleasant 
end  that  the  rehearsal  was  destined  to  come  to;  but  one  critic, 
who  enjoyed  complete  independence  of  soul,  though  an  unfortunate 
incident  in  his  life  had  compelled  him  to  relinquish  his  influential 
circle  in  the  city  and  retire  to  a  limited  sphere  of  activity  in  the 
province,  wrote:  "This  artist  has  the  unquestioned  ability  to  be- 
come the  light  and  leader  of  his  generation.  Nature  created  him, 
his  star  developed  him.  May  Heaven  give  him  the  power  and 
patience  indispensable  to  the  artist,  if  he  would  be  born  again  and 
become  a  man  above  the  gifts  of  men.  If  he  only  does  not  reach 
out  too  soon  for  the  ripe  fruits,  and,  intoxicated  by  the  allurements 
of  the  lower  passions,  fail  to  hear  the  voice  of  his  heart!  He 
has  taken  *  lofty  flight;  the  azure  gates  of  renown  have  swung 


VOICES  FROM  WITHOUT  AND  WITHIN     in 

wide  open  to  him.  Let  him  only  be  cautious  about  his  second 
descent  into  the  night." 

The  same  connoisseur  found  the  composition  of  "Vineta"  less 
ingenious,  and  its  instrumentation  suffering  from  the  lean  experi- 
ence of  a  beginner.  Yet  even  this  work  was  strongly  applauded. 
The  impresario  Dormaul  clapped  his  hands  until  the  perspiration 
poured  from  his  face.  Wurzelmann  was  beside  himself  with  en- 
thusiasm. Old  Herold  smiled  all  over  his  face.  The  long-haired 
found  it  of  course  quite  difficult  to  subdue  their  jealousy,  but 
even  they  were  not  stingy  with  their  recognition. 

But  how  did  Herr  Carovius  feel?  His  spittle  had  a  bitter 
taste,  his  body  pained  him.  When  Andreas  Doderlein  turned 
to  the  audience  and  bowed,  Carovius  laughed  a  laugh  of  tremen- 
dous contempt.  And  Jason  Philip  Schimmelweis?  He  would 
have  felt  much  more  comfortable  if  the  hand-clapping  had  been 
so  much  ear-boxing,  and  Daniel  Nothafft,  the  culprit,  had  been 
the  objective.  The  boy  who  had  been  cast  out  had  become 
the  leader  of  men!  Jason  Philip  put  his  hand  to  his  forehead, 
shook  his  head,  and  was  on  the  point  of  exclaiming,  "Oh,  ye  de- 
ceivers and  deceived!  Listen,  listen!  I  know  the  boy;  I  know 
the  man  who  has  made  fools  of  you  here  this  evening!"  He 
waited  to  see  whether  the  misunderstanding,  the  colossal  swindle, 
would  not  be  cleared  up  automatically.  He  did  not  wait  in  vain. 

At  the  close  of  the  "Serenade,"  Jordan  was  struck  by  Gertrude's 
feverish  paleness.  He  asked  her  whether  she  felt  ill,  but  received 
no  reply.  During  the  performance  of  the  second  piece  she  kept 
putting  her  hands  to  her  bosom,  as  if  she  were  suffering  from 
repressed  convulsions.  Her  eyes  were  now  lifeless,  now  glowing 
with  an  uncanny  fire.  As  soon  as  the  piece  was  finished,  she 
turned  to  her  father  and  asked  him  to  take  her  home.  Jordan 
was  frightened.  Those  sitting  next  to  him  looked  at  the  girl's 
pale  face,  sympathised  with  her,  and  made  conventional  remarks. 
Eleanore  wanted  to  go  home  too,  but  Gertrude  whispered  to  her 
in  her  imperious  way  and  told  her  to  stay.  Familiar  as  she  was 
with  Gertrude's  disposition,  she  thought  that  it  was  simply  a  pass- 
ing attack  of  some  kind,  and  regained  her  composure. 

Daniel  was  standing  at  the  door,  talking  to  Benda  and  Wurzel- 
mann. He  was  very  much  excited;  his  two  companions  were 
trying  to  appease  his  embitterment  against  Andreas  Doderlein. 
"Ah,  the  man  doesn't  know  a  thing  about  his  profession,"  he  ex- 
claimed, and  scorned  all  attempts  to  effect  a  reconciliation  between 
him  and  the  leader  of  the  orchestra.  "What  is  left  of  my  com- 


ii2  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

positions  is  debris  only.  He  drags  the  time,  never  even  tries  to 
make  a  legatura,  scorns  a  fiano  every  time  he  comes  to  one,  pays  no 
attention  to  crescendos,  never  retards — it  is  terrible!  My  works 
cannot  be  played  in  public  like  that!" 

Gertrude  and  her  father  passed  by  quickly  and  without  greet- 
ing. Daniel  was  stupefied.  The  lifeless  expression  in  Gertrude's 
face  unnerved  him.  He  felt  as  if  he  had  been  struck  by  a  ham- 
mer, as  if  his  own  fate  were  inseparably  connected  with  that  of 
the  girl.  Her  step,  her  eyes,  her  mouth  were,  he  felt,  a  part  of 
his  own  being.  And  the  fact  that  she  passed  by  without  even 
speaking  to  him,  cold,  reserved,  hostile,  filled  him  with  such  in- 
tense anger  that  from  then  on  he  was  not  accountable  for  what 
he  did. 

The  flood  of  melody  in  Beethoven's  great  work  was  on  the 
point  of  pouring  forth  from  the  orchestra  in  all  its  exalted  rugged- 
ness.  What  happened?  There  came  forth  instead  a  confused, 
noisy  clash  and  clatter.  Daniel  was  seized  with  violent  restless- 
ness. It  was  hard  enough  to  see  his  own  works  bungled;  to  see  this 
creation  with  its  delicate  soul  and  titanic  power,  a  work  which  he 
knew  as  he  knew  few  things  on  this  earth,  torn  to  tatters  and 
bungled  all  around  was  more  than  he  could  stand.  The  trumpet 
solo  did  not  sound  as  though  it  came  from  some  distant  land  of 
fairy  spirits:  it  was  manifestly  at  the  people's  feet  and  it  was  flat. 
He  began  to  tremble.  When  the  calm  melancholy  andante,  com- 
pletely robbed  of  all  measure  and  proportion  by  the  unskilled  hand 
of  the  leader  and  made  to  dissipate  in  senseless  sounds,  reached 
his  ear,  he  was  beside  himself.  He  rushed  on  to  the  platform, 
seized  the  arm  of  the  conductor  with  his  icy  fingers,  and  shouted: 
"That  is  enough!  That  is  no  way  to  treat  a  divine  creation!" 

The  people  rose  in  their  seats.  The  instruments  suddenly  became 
silent,  with  the  exception  of  a  cello  which  still  whimpered  from 
the  corner.  Andreas  Db'derlein  bounded  back,  looked  at  the  mad 
man,  his  mouth  as  wide  as  he  could  open  it,  laid  the  baton  on  the 
desk,  and  stammered:  "By  Jupiter,  this  is  unheard  of!':  The 
musicians  left  their  places  and  grouped  themselves  around  the 
strange  man;  the  tumult  in  the  public  grew  worse  and  worse. 
They  asked  questions,  threatened,  tried  to  set  each  other  at  ease, 
scolded  and  raged.  In  the  meantime  Daniel  Nothafft,  his  head 
bowed,  his  back  bent,  stood  there  on  the  platform,  glowing  with 
anger  and  determined  to  have  his  revenge. 

A  few  minutes  later,  Andreas  Doderlein  was  sitting  at  the  table 
in  the  musicians'  waiting  room.  He  looked  like  Emperor  Bar- 


VOICES  FROM  WITHOUT  AND  WITHIN    113 

barossa  in  Kyffhauser.  He  had  well  founded  reason  to  express 
his  contempt  for  the  decadence  and  impiety  of  the  youth  of  to- 
day. It  was  superfluous  for  him  to  remark  that  a  man  who  would 
conduct  himself  as  Daniel  had  done  should  be  eliminated  from  the 
ranks  of  those  who  lay  claim  to  the  help  and  consideration  of  sane 
people.  The  dignified  gentlemen  of  the  Orchestral  Union  were 
of  the  same  opinion;  you  could  search  the  annals  of  history  from 
the  beginning  of  time,  and  you  would  never  find  a  case  like  this. 
Mild  eyes  flashed,  grey  beards  wagged.  The  deliberation  was 
brief,  the  sentence  just.  A  committee  waited  on  Daniel  to  inform 
him  that  his  compositions  had  been  struck  from  the  programme. 
The  news  spread  like  wild-fire. 

Who  was  happier  than  Jason  Philip  Schimmelweis? 

He  was  like  a  man  who  gets  up  from  the  table  with  a  full 
stomach,  after  having  sat  down  at  it  fearing  lest  he  starve  to  death. 
On  his  way  home  he  whistled  and  laughed  alternately  and  with 
well  balanced  proportion. 

"There  you  see  it  again,"  he  said  to  his  daughter,  as  she  walked 
along  at  his  side,  "you  see  it  again:  you  cannot  get  blood  from  a 
turnip  any  more  than  you  can  get  happiness  from  misery.  A  jack- 
ass remains  a  jackass,  a  culprit  a  culprit,  and  loafing  never  fails 
to  bring  the  loafer  to  a  disgraceful  end.  The  Devil  has  a  short 
but  nimble  tail;  and  it  makes  no  difference  how  slovenly  he  may 
conduct  his  business,  his  recruits  have  got  to  pay  the  piper  in  the 
end.  This  will  be  a  windfall  for  mother.  Let's  hurry  so  that 
we  can  serve  it  to  her  while  it's  still  hot!" 

And  Philippina — she  had  never  taken  her  eyes  off  the  floor  the 
entire  evening — seemed  to  be  utterly  unconscious  of  the  fact  at 
present  that  she  was  surrounded  by  houses  and  people.  She  was  a 
defeated  woman;  she  wanted  to  be.  She  had  much  to  conceal; 
her  young  breast  was  a  hell  of  emotions,  but  her  ugly,  gloomy 
old  face  was  as  inanimate  and  empty  as  a  stone. 

Herr  Carovius  waited  at  the  gate.  After  all  the  other  people 
had  gone,  Daniel,  Benda,  Wurzelmann,  and  Eleanore  came  along. 
Daniel's  storm  cape  fluttered  in  the  wind;  his  hat  was  drawn  down 
over  his  eyes.  Herr  Carovius  stepped  up  before  him. 

"A  heroic  deed,  my  dear  Nothafft,"  he  miauled.  "I  could  em- 
brace you.  From  this  time  on  you  can  count  me  among  your  friends. 
Now  stand  still,  you  human  being  transformed  into  a  hurricane. 
I  must  say  of  course  that  so  far  as  your  music  is  concerned,  I  am  not 
with  you.  There  is  too  much  hullaballoo  in  it,  and  not  enough 
plain  hellishncss  to  suit  me.  But  rid  this  country  of  the  whole 


ii4  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

tribe  of  Doderleins,  and  you  will  find  that  I  am  your  man.  Not 
that  I  would  invite  you  to  take  dinner  with  me,  so  that  you  could 
have  me  make  you  a  loan,  not  on  your  life.  I  am  only  a  poor 
musician  myself.  But  otherwise  I  am  at  your  service.  I  hope 
you  sleep  well  to-night — and  get  the  hullaballoo  out  of  your 
music  just  as  soon  as  you  can." 

He  tittered,  and  then  scampered  away.  Daniel  looked  at  him 
with  a  feeling  of  astonishment.  Wurzelmann  laughed,  and  said  he 
had  never  seen  such  a  queer  codger  in  all  his  life.  All  four  stood 
there  for  a  while,  not  knowing  exactly  what  to  think,  and  in  the 
meantime  it  was  snowing  and  raining.  Asked  by  Benda  where  he 
wished  to  go,  Daniel  said  he  was  going  home.  But  what  could  he 
do  at  home?  Why  couldn't  he  go  home  with  Benda?  "No," 
said  Daniel,  "I  can't  do  that:  I  am  a  burden  to  every  one  to-day, 
including  myself.  Say,  little  servant,  how  are  you  feeling?"  he 
said,  turning  to  Wurzelmann,  "how  about  a  drink  or  two?" 

Wurzelmann,  somewhat  embarrassed,  said  that  he  had  an  engage- 
ment. There  was  something  repulsive  in  the  way  he  declined  the 
invitation. 

"Ah,  you,  with  your  old  engagement,"  said  Daniel,  "I  don't  give 
a  hang  where  you  are  going;  I  am  going  along." 

"No,  you're  not,  Daniel,"  cried  Eleanore.  And  when  Daniel 
looked  at  her  in  astonishment,  she  blushed  and  continued:  "You 
are  not  going  with  him;  he  is  going  to  see  some  women!" 

The  three  young  men  laughed,  and  in  her  confusion  Eleanore 
laughed  too. 

"How  tragic  you  are,  little  Eleanore,"  said  Daniel  in  a  tone  of 
unusual  flippancy,  "what  do  you  want  me  to  do?  Do  you  think 
that  Wurzelmann  and  I  are  just  alike  when  it  comes  to  an  even- 
ing's amusement?  Do  you  think  the  earth  claims  me  as  soon  as  I 
see  a  tear? " 

"Let  him  go,"  whispered  Benda  to  the  girl,  "he  is  right.  Don't 
bring  an  artificial  light  into  this  darkness;  it  serves  his  purpose; 
let  him  do  with  it  as  he  pleases." 

Eleanore  looked  at  Benda  with  wide-opened  eyes.  "Darkness? 
What  do  you  mean?  The  fire  then  was  merely  a  will-o'-the-wisp," 
she  said,  her  eyes  shining  with  pride,  "I  see  him  full  of  light." 
Daniel  had  heard  what  she  said.  "Really,  Eleanore?"  he  asked 
with  greedy  curiosity. 

She  nodded:  "Really,  Daniel." 

"For  that  you  can  have  anything  you  want  from  me." 

"Well  then   I  beg  you   and   Benda   to  come  over  to  our  house. 


VOICES  FROM  WITHOUT  AND  WITHIN     115 

Father  will  be  delighted  to  see  you,  and  we  will  have  something 
to  eat." 

"Fine.  That  sounds  good  to  me.  Addio,  Wurzelmann,  and  re- 
member me  to  the  girls.  You  are  coming  along,  aren't  you,  Fried- 
rich?" 

Benda  first  made  a  few  polite  remarks,  and  then  said  he  would 
accept. 

"You  liked  it  then,  did  you,  Eleanore?"  asked  Daniel,  as  they 
walked  along  the  street. 

Eleanore  was  silent.  To  Daniel  her  silence  was  moving.  But 
he  soon  forgot  the  impression  it  made  on  him;  and  it  was  a  long, 
long  while,  indeed  even  years,  before  he  recalled  this  scene. 

XI 

Jordan  had  taken  Gertrude  home.  He  was  very  careful  not  to 
ask  her  any  questions  that  would  cause  her  pain.  On  reaching  the 
house  he  lighted  a  lamp  and  helped  her  take  off  her  cloak. 

"How  do  you  feel?"  he  asked  in  a  kindly  tone,  "are  you  better?" 

Gertrude  turned  to  one  side,  and  sat  down  on  a  chair. 

"Well,  we'll  drink  a  cup  of  hot  tea,"  continued  the  old  man; 
"then  my  child  will  go  to  bed,  and  to-morrow  morning  she  will  be 
all  right  again.  Yes?  " 

Gertrude  got  up.  "Father,"  she  sighed,  and  felt  around  for  the 
tea  table  as  a  means  of  support. 

"Gertrude,  what  is  the  matter? "  cried  Jordan  in  dismay. 

She  moved  the  upper  part  of  her  body  in  her  characteristic 
way — as  though  it  were  limp  and  she  were  trying  to  drag  it  along 
with  her — and  a  faint  smile  came  over  her  face.  All  of  a  sudden 
she  burst  out  crying  and  ran  to  her  room.  Jordan  heard  her  bolt 
the  door,  looked  anxiously  before  him,  waited  a  moment  or  two, 
and  then  crept  up  to  her  door  on  his  tiptoes. 

He  placed  his  hands  under  his  chin  and  listened.  Gertrude  was 
crying.  It  was  an  even  and  touching  cry,  not  so  much  filled  with 
grief  as  her  sobs  generally  were,  and  seemed  to  be  expiratory 
rather  than  the  reverse. 

As  Jordan  let  the  lonely,  unhappy,  and  impenetrable  life  of  his 
daughter  pass  by  him  in  mental  review,  he  became  painfully  aware 
of  the  fact  that  this  was  the  first  time  in  her  life  that  she  had 
ever  heard  real  music.  "Is  it  possible?"  he  asked.  He  tried  to 
think  of  another  time  that  would  make  him  disbelieve  the  accuracy 
of  his  unpleasant  observation. 


ii6  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

He  said  to  himself:  Her  case  is  simple;  the  hitherto  unknown 
sweetness  and  power  concealed  in  the  ensomble  playing  of  the 
violins,  the  euphony  of  the  orchestra,  and  the  beauty  of  the  melody 
with  all  its  fateful  directness  has  made  the  same  impression  on  her 
that  the  sunlight  makes  on  a  person  from  whose  eyes  a  cataract  has 
just  been  removed.  Her  soul  has  suffered  from  hunger;  that  is 
where  the  trouble  lies.  She  has  struggled  too  fiercely  with  the 
incomprehensible  and  the  intangible. 

His  instinct  of  love  told  him  that  the  best  thing  to  do  was  to 
let  her  cry.  It  will  do  her  good;  it  will  relieve  her  soul.  He 
pulled  a  chair  up  to  her  door,  sat  down,  and  listened.  When  he 
could  no  longer  hear  her  crying,  his  heart  grew  easier. 

xn 

Eleanore  was  right.  Her  father  was  quite  pleased  to  see  Danrel 
and  Benda.  "I  am  proud  of  you,"  he  said  to  Daniel,  "and  for 
your  visit  to  me  I  thank  you.  I  feel  flattered." 

"If  you  had  stayed  a  half  hour  longer,  you  might  feel  differently 
about  it,"  replied  Daniel. 

Eleanore  gave  her  father  a  brief  account  of  what  had  taken 
place  at  the  concert.  Jordan  listened  attentively,  looked  at  Daniel, 
and,  with  a  wrinkle  on  his  forehead,  said,  "Is  it  possible?" 

"Yes,  it  is  possible;  it  had  to  happen,"  said  Daniel. 

"Well,  if  it  had  to  happen,  it  is  a  good  thing  that  it  is  over," 
was  the  dispassionate  response. 

Eleanore  took  her  father's  hand;  the  back  of  it  was  covered  with 
big  yellow  spots;  she  kissed  it.  Then  she  set  the  table,  got  every- 
thing ready  for  the  meal,  went  in  and  out  of  the  room  in  a  most 
cheerful  way,  and  did  not  forget  to  put  the  water  on  the  stove 
to  boil.  She  had  asked  about  Gertrude  as  soon  as  she  came  home, 
but  for  some  reason  or  other  her  father  seemed  disinclined  to  say 
anything  on  the  subject,  from  which  Eleanore  inferred  that  there 
was  nothing  seriously  wrong. 

Finally  they  sat  down  at  the  table.  Eleanore  was  quite  pleased 
to  see  the  three  men  whom  she  liked  so  much  gathered  together 
in  this  way.  There  was  a  feeling  of  gratitude  in  her  heart  to- 
ward each  one  of  them.  But  she  was  also  hungry:  she  ate  four 
sandwiches,  one  right  after  the  other.  When  she  saw  that  Daniel 
was  not  eating,  she  stepped  up  behind  his  chair,  bent  over  him  so 
far  that  the  loose  flowing  hair  from  her  temples  tickled  his  face, 
and  said:  "Are  you  embarrassed?  Or  don't  you  like  the  way  the 


VOICES  FROM  WITHOUT  AND  WITHIN     117 

sausages  have  been  prepared?      Would  you  like  something  else?" 

Daniel  evaded  the  questions;  he  was  out  of  sorts.  And  yet  in 
the  bottom  of  his  heart  the  contact  with  the  girl  made  a  pleasing 
impression  on  him;  it  was  in  truth  almost  a  saving  impression. 
For  his  thoughts  continually  and  obstinately  returned  to  the  girl 
who  had  fled,  and  whose  presence  he  missed  without  exactly  wish- 
ing that  she  were  at  the  table  with  the  others. 

Benda  spoke  of  the  political  changes  that  might,  he  feared,  take 
place  because  of  the  death  of  Gambetta.  Jordan,  who  always  took 
a  warm  interest  in  the  affairs  of  the  Fatherland,  made  a  number 
of  true  and  humane  remarks  about  the  tense  feeling  then  existing 
between  France  and  Germany,  whereupon  the  door  to  Gertrude's 
room  opened  and  Gertrude  herself  stood  on  the  threshold. 

Deep  silence  filled  the  room;  they  all  looked  at  her. 

Strangely  enough,  she  was  not  wearing  the  dress  she  had  on 
at  the  concert.  She  had  put  on  the  Nile  green  dress,  the  one  in 
which  Daniel  saw  her  for  the  first  time.  Jordan  and  Eleanore 
hardly  noticed  the  change;  they  were  too  much  absorbed  in  the 
expression  on  the  girl's  face.  Daniel  was  also  astonished;  he  could 
not  look  away. 

Her  expression  had  become  softer,  freer,  brighter.  The  unrest 
in  which  her  face  had  heretofore  been  clouded  had  disappeared. 
Even  the  outlines  of  her  face  seemed  to  have  changed:  the  arch  of 
her  eyebrows  was  higher,  the  oval  of  her  cheeks  more  delicate. 

She  leaned  against  the  door;  she  even  leaned  her  head  against  the 
door.  Her  left  hand,  hanging  at  her  side,  seemed  indolent,  limp, 
indifferent.  Her  right  hand  was  pressed  against  her  bosom. 
Standing  in  this  position,  she  studied  the  faces  of  those  who  were 
sitting  at  the  table,  while  a  timid  and  gentle  smile  played  about  her 
lips. 

Jordan's  first  suspicion  was  that  she  had  lost  her  mind.  He 
sprang  up,  and  hastened  over  to  her.  But  she  gave  him  her  hand, 
and  offered  no  resistance  at  all  to  being  led  over  to  the  table. 

Suddenly  she  fixed  her  silent  gaze  on  Daniel.  He  got  up  in- 
voluntarily, and  seized  the  back  of  his  chair.  His  colour  changed; 
he  distorted  the  corners  of  his  mouth;  he  was  nervous.  But  when 
Gertrude  withdrew  her  hand  from  her  father's  and  extended  it 
to  him,  and  when  he  took  it  and  his  eye  met  hers — he  could  not 
help  but  look  at  her — his  solicitude  vanished.  For  what  he  read 
in  her  eyes  was  an  unreserved  and  irrevocable  capitulation  of  her 
whole  self,  and  Daniel  was  the  victor.  His  face  grew  gentle, 
grateful,  dreamy,  and  resplendent. 


ii8  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

It  was  not  merely  the  sensuous  charm  revealed  in  the  feeling 
which  Gertrude  betrayed  that  moved  him:  it  was  the  fact  that  she 
came  as  she  had  come,  a  penitent  and  a  convert.  The  sublime 
conviction  that  he  had  been  able  to  transform  a  soul  and  awaken  it 
to  new  life  touched  him  deeply. 

This  it  was  that  drew  him  to  Gertrude  more  than  her  counte- 
nance, her  expression,  and  her  body  combined.  And  now  he  saw 
all  three — her  countenance,  her  expression,  and  her  body. 

Jordan  had  a  foreboding  of  something.  He  felt  that  he  would 
have  to  take  the  girl  in  his  arms  and  flee  with  her.  Pictures  of 
future  misfortune  crowded  upon  his  imagination;  the  hope  he  had 
cherished  for  Gertrude  was  crushed  to  the  earth. 

Benda  stared  at  his  plate  in  silence.  Nevertheless,  just  as  if 
he  had  other  eyes  than  those  with  which  he  saw  earthly  things,  he 
noticed  that  Eleanore's  hands  and  lips  were  trembling,  that  with 
each  succeeding  second  she  grew  paler,  that  she  cast  a  distrustful 
glance  first  at  her  father,  then  at  her  sister,  and  then  at  Daniel, 
and  that  she  finally,  as  if  overcome  with  a  feeling  of  exhaustion, 
slipped  away  from  her  place  by  the  table  lamp,  stole  into  a  corner, 
and  sat  down  on  the  hassock. 

But  after  they  had  all  resumed  their  seats  at  the  table,  Gertrude 
sitting  between  Benda  and  her  father,  Eleanore  came  up  and  sat 
down  next  to  Daniel.  She  never  took  her  eyes  off  Gertrude; 
she  looked  at  her  in  breathless  surprise,  Gertrude  smiled  as  she 
had  smiled  when  leaning  against  the  door,  timidly  and  passion- 
ately. 

From  that  moment  on,  the  conversation  lagged,  Benda  suggested 
to  his  friend  that  it  was  time  for  them  to  leave.  They  thanked 
Jordan  for  his  hospitality  and  departed.  Jordan  accompanied  them 
down  the  stairs  and  unlocked  the  front  door.  When  he  returned, 
Eleanore  was  just  going  to  her  room:  "Well,  Eleanore,  are  you 
not  going  to  say  good-night?"  he  called  after  her. 

She  turned  around,  nodded  conventionally,  and  closed  the  door. 

Gertrude  was  still  sitting  at  the  table.  Jordan  was  walking  up 
and  down  the  room.  Suddenly  she  sprang  up,  stepped  in  his  way, 
forced  him  to  stop,  threw  her  arms  about  his  neck,  and  kissed  him 
on  the  forehead.  She  had  never  done  that  before. 

She  too  had  gone  to  sleep.  Jordan  felt  terribly  alone.  He 
heard  the  street  door  open  and  close;  he  heard  some  one  enter.  It 
was  Benno.  Jordan  thought  that  his  son  would  come  in,  for  he 
must  have  seen  the  light  through  the  crack  of  the  door.  But  Benno 
evidently  had  no  desire  to  see  his  father.  He  went  to  his  room  at 


VOICES  FROM  WITHOUT  AND  WITHIN     119 

the  other  end  of  the  hall,  and  closed  the  door  behind  him  just  as 
if  he  were  a  servant. 

"They  are  all  three  in  bed,"  thought  Jordan  to  himself,"  and 
what  do  I  know  about  them?" 

He  shook  his  head,  removed  the  hanging  lamp  from  its  frame, 
and  locked  the  room,  holding  the  lamp  very  carefully  as  he  did  so. 

XIII 

Eleanore  had  not  seen  Eberhard  von  Auffenberg  for  a  number  of 
weeks.  He  wrote  her  a  card,  asking  for  the  privilege  of  meeting 
her  somewhere.  The  place  in  fact  was  always  the  same — the 
bridge  at  the  gate  to  the  Zoological  Garden.  Immediately  after 
sunset  she  betook  herself  to  that  point.  It  was  a  warm  March 
evening;  there  was  not  a  breath  of  wind;  the  sky  was  covered  with 
clouds. 

They  strolled  up  the  castle  hill,  and  when  they  had  reached  the 
parapet,  Eleanore  said,  gently  laughing:  "Now  listen,  I  have  talked 
enough;  you  say  something." 

"It  is  so  pleasant  to  be  silent  with  you,"  replied  Eberhard  in  a 
downcast  mood. 

Filled  with  a  disagreeable  premonition,  Eleanore  sought  out 
one  of  the  many  hundreds  of  lights  dimly  flickering  down  in  the 
city,  fixed  her  eyes  on  it,  and  stubbornly  refused  to  look  at  any 
other  earthly  object. 

"If  I  appeal  to  you  at  this  hour,"  the  young  Baron  finally  began, 
"it  is  to  a  certain  extent  exactly  as  if  I  were  appealing  to  the 
Supreme  Court.  My  expectations  in  life  have,  with  one  single 
exception,  been  utterly  and  irrevocably  crushed.  It  depends  quite 
upon  you,  Eleanore,  whether  I  am  to  become  and  remain  a  use- 
less parasite  of  human  society,  or  a  man  who  has  firmly  decided  to 
pay  for  his  share  of  happiness  by  an  equal  amount  of  honest  work. 
I  offer  you  everything  I  have.  It  is  not  much,  but  I  offer  it  to 
you  without  haggling  and  forever.  You  and  you  alone  can  save 
me.  That  is  what  I  wanted  to  say  to  you." 

He  looked  up  at  the  clouds,  leaning  on  his  cane,  which  he  had 
placed  behind  his  back. 

"I  have  forbidden  you  to  speak  of  this,"  whispered  Eleanore 
in  profound  dismay,  "and  you  promised  me  that  you  would  not  say 
anything  about  it." 

"I  gave  you  my  promise  because  I  loved  you;  I  break  it  for  the 
same  reason,"  replied  Eberhard.  "I  feel  that  such  a  promise  is 


120  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

the  act  of  a  foolish  child,  when  the  building  up  or  the  tearing 
down  of  a  human  life  depends  upon  it.  If  you  are  of  a  different 
opinion,  I  can  only  beg  your  pardon.  Probably  I  have  been 
mistaken." 

Eleanore  shook  her  head ;  she  was  grieved. 

"It  was  my  plan  to  go  to  England  with  you,  and  there  we  would 
be  married,"  continued  Eberhard.  "It  is  quite  impossible  for  me 
to  get  married  here:  I  loathe  this  city.  It  is  impossible,  because  if 
I  did  my  people  would  in  all  probability  set  up  some  claims  to 
which  they  are  no  longer  entitled  and  for  which  I  would  fight. 
The  mere  thought  of  doing  this  repels  me.  And  it  is  also  im- 
possible because  .  .  ."  at  this  he  stopped  and  bit  his  lips. 

Eleanore  looked  at  him;  she  was  filled  with  curiosity.  His 
pedantic  enumeration  of  the  various  hindrances  as  well  as  the 
romanticism  of  his  plans  amused  her.  When  she  detected  the 
expression  of  downright  grief  in  his  face,  she  felt  sorry  for  him. 
She  came  one  step  nearer  to  him;  he  took  her  hand,  bowed,  and 
pressed  his  lips  to  her  fingers.  She  jerked  her  hand  back. 

"Fatal  circumstances  have  placed  me  in  a  most  humiliating 
situation;  if  I  am  not  to  succumb  to  them,  I  must  shake  them  off 
at  once,"  said  Eberhard  anxiously.  "I  was  inexperienced;  I  have 
been  deceived.  There  is  a  person  connected  with  my  case  who 
hardly  deserves  the  name  of  a  human  being;  he  is  a  monster  in 
the  garb  of  an  honest  citizen.  I  have  not  the  faintest  idea  what 
I  am  to  do  next,  Eleanore.  •  I  must  leave  at  once.  In  a  strange 
country  I  may  regain  my  strength  and  mental  clearness.  With 
you  I  could  defy  the  universe.  Believe  in  me,  have  confidence  in 
me!" 

Eleanore  let  her  head  sink.  The  despair  of  this  usually  reserved 
man  touched  her  heart.  Her  mouth  twitched  as  she  sought  for 
words. 

"I  cannot  g«f  married,  Eberhard,"  she  said,  "really,  I  cannot. 
I  did  not  entice  you  to  me;  you  dare  not  reproach  me.  I  have 
tried  to  make  my  attitude  toward  you  perfectly  clear  from  the  very 
first  time  I  met  you.  I  cannot  get  married;  I  cannot." 

For  five  or  six  minutes  there  was  a  silence  that  was  interrupted 
only  by  human  voices  in  the  distance  and  the  sound  of  carriages 
from  the  streets  down  in  the  city.  In  the  compassion  that  Eleanore 
after  all  felt  for  Eberhard  she  sensed  the  harshness  of  her  unquali- 
fied refusal.  She  looked  at  him  courageously,  firmly,  and  said:  "It 
is  not  obstinacy  on  my  part,  Eberhard;  nor  is  it  stupid  anxiety,  nor 


VOICES  FROM  WITHOUT  AND  WITHIN     121 

imagination,  nor  lack  of  respect.  Truth  to  tell  I  have  a  very  high 
opinion  of  you.  But  there  must  be  something  quite  unnatural 
about  me,  for  you  see  that  I  loathe  the  very  idea  of  getting  married. 
I  detest  the  thought  of  living  with  a  man.  I  like  you,  but  when 
you  touch  me  as  you  did  a  little  while  ago  when  you  kissed  my 
hand,  a  shudder  runs  through  my  whole  body." 

Eberhard  looked  at  her  in  astonishment;  he  was  morose,  too. 

She  continued:  "It  has  been  in  me  since  my  childhood;  perhaps 
I  was  born  with  it,  just  as  other  people  are  born  with  a  physical 
defect.  It  may  be  that  I  have  been  this  way  ever  since  a  certain 
day  in  my  life.  It  was  an  autumn  evening  in  Pappenheim,  where 
my  aunt  then  lived.  My  sister  Gertrude  and  I  were  walking  in  a 
great  fruit  garden;  we  came  to  a  thorn  hedge,  and  sitting  by  the 
hedge  was  an  old  woman.  My  father  and  mother  were  far  away, 
and  the  old  woman  said  to  my  sister,  then  about  seven:  Be  on  your 
guard  against  even-thing  that  sings  and  rings.  To  me  she  said:  Be 
careful  never  to  have  a  child.  The  next  day  the  woman  was  found 
dead  under  the  hedge.  She  was  over  ninety  years  old,  and  for 
more  than  fifty  years  she  had  peddled  herbs  in  Altmiihltal.  I 
naturally  had  not  the  vaguest  idea  what  she  meant  at  the  time  by 
"having  a  child,"  but  her  remark  stuck  in  my  heart  like  an  arrow. 
It  grew  up  with  me;  it  became  a  part  of  me.  And  when  I  learned 
what  it  meant,  it  was  a  picture  by  the  side  of  the  picture  of  death. 
Now  you  must  not  think  that  I  have  gone  through  life  thus  far 
filled  with  a  feeling  of  despicable  fear.  Not  at  all.  I  simply 
have  no  desires.  The  idea  does  not  attract  me.  If  it  ever  doe?, 
many  questions  will  I  ask  about  life  and  death!  I  will  laugh  at 
the  old  woman  under  the  hedge  and  do  what  I  must." 

As  she  spoke  these  last  words,  her  face  took  on  a  strangely 
chaste  and  fanciful  expression.  Eberhard  could  not  take  his  eyes 
from  her.  "Ah,  there  are  after  all  fairy  creatures  on  this  flat,  stale, 
and  unprofitable  earth,"  he  thought,  "enchanted  princesses,  myste- 
rious Melusinas."  He  smiled  somewhat  distrustfully — as  a  matter 
of  habit.  But  from  this  moment  his  frank,  open,  wooing  attach- 
ment to  the  girl  was  transformed  into  a  consuming  passion. 

He  was  proud,  and  man  enough  to  subdue  his  feelings.  But 
he  yearned  more  than  ever,  and  was  tortured  by  his  yearnings  to 
know  something  more  than  the  vague  knowledge  he  had  at  present 
about  that  glass  case,  that  spirit-chest  in  which,  so  near  and  yet 
so  far,  this  lovely  creature  lived,  impervious  to  the  touch  of  mortal 
hands  and  immune  to  the  flames  of  love. 


122  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

"You  are  rejecting  me;  then?"  he  asked. 

"Well,  it  is  at  least  advisable  that  for  the  time  being  we  avoid 
each  other's  presence." 

"Advisable  for  me,  you  think.  And  for  the  time  being?  How 
am  I  to  interpret  that?" 

"Well,  let  us  say  for  five  years." 

"Why  exactly  five  years?  Why  not  twenty?  Why  not  fifty? 
It  would  be  all  the  same." 

"It  seems  to  me  that  five  years  is  just  the  right  amount  of  time, 
Eberhard." 

"Five  years!  Each  year  has  twelve  times  thirty,  fifty-two  times 
seven  days.  Why  the  arithmetic  of  it  is  enough  to  make  a  man 
lose  his  mind." 

"But  it  must  be  five  years,"  said  Eleanore  gently  though  firmly. 
"In  five  years  I  will  not  have  changed.  And  if  I  am  just  the  same 
in  five  years  from  now,  why,  we'll  talk  it  over  again.  I  must  not 
exclude  myself  from  the  world  forever.  My  father  often  says: 
What  looks  like  fate  at  Easter  is  a  mere  whim  by  Pentecost.  I 
prefer  to  wait  until  Pentecost  and  not  to  forget  my  friend  in  the 
meantime." 

She  gave  him  her  hand  with  a  smile. 

He  shook  his  head:  "No,  I  can't  take  your  hand;  another  one  of 
those  shudders  will  run  through  you  if  I  do.  Farewell,  Eleanore." 

"And  you  too,  Eberhard,  farewell!" 

Eberhard  started  down  the  hill.  Suddenly  he  stopped,  turned 
around,  and  said:  "Just  one  thing  more.  That  musician — NothafFt 
is  his  name,  isn't  it? — is  engaged  to  your  sister,  isn't  he?" 

"Yes,  Gertrude  and  Daniel  will  get  married  some  day.  But  who 
told  you  about  it? " 

"The  musician  himself  was  in  a  restaurant.  The  fellows  were 
drinking,  and  he  was  so  incautious  as  to  raise  his  glass,  and,  some- 
what after  the  fashion  of  an  intoxicated  drum-major,  he  himself 
drank  to  Gertrude's  health.  For  some  time  there  was  talk  of  his 
marrying  you.  It  is  much  better  as  it  is.  I  can't  stand  artists.  I 
can't  even  have  due  respect  for  them,  these  indiscreet  hotspurs. 
Good  night,  Eleanore." 

And  with  that  he  vanished  in  the  darkness. 


IN  MEMORY  OF  A  DREAM  FIGURE 


ONE  evening  Daniel  called  on  Benda  to  take  leave  of  him  for 
a  long  while. 

Just  as  he  was  about  to  enter  the  front  gate,  he  saw  Herr 
Carovius's  dog  standing  there  showing  his  teeth.  The  beast's  blood- 
shot eyes  were  fixed  on  a  ten-year  old  girl  who  was  likewise  on 
the  point  of  entering  the  house,  but,  afraid  of  the  dog,  she  did 
not  dare  take  another  step.  The  animal  had  dragged  his  chain 
along  behind  him,  and  stood  there  now,  snarling  in  a  most  vicious 
way. 

Daniel  took  the  child  by  the  hand  and  led  it  back  a  few  steps, 
after  he  had  frightened  the  dog  into  silence  by  some  rough  com- 
mands. "Who  are  you?"  he  asked  the  girl. 

"Dorothea  Doderlein,"  was  the  reply. 

"Ah,"  said  Daniel.  He  could  not  help  but  laugh,  for  there  was 
a  comic  tone  of  precociousness  in  the  girl's  manner  of  speaking. 
But  she  was  a  very  pretty  child.  A  sly,  smiling  little  face  peeped 
out  from  under  her  hood,  and  her  velvet  mantle  with  great  pearl 
buttons  enshrouded  a  dainty  figure. 

"You  should  have  been  in  bed  long  ago,  Dorothea,"  said  Daniel. 
"What  will  the  night  watchman  think  when  he  comes  along  and 
finds  you  up?  He  will  take  you  by  the  collar,  and  lead  you  off 
to  jail." 

Dorothea  told  him  why  she  was  still  up  and  why  she  was  alone. 
She  had  been  visiting  a  school  friend,  and  the  maid  who  called 
for  her  wanted  to  get  a  loaf  of  bread  from  the  bakery  before 
going  up  stairs.  She  related  the  story  of  her  meeting  with  the 
dog  with  so  much  coquetry  and  detail  that  Daniel  was  delighted  at 
the  contrast  between  this  rodomontade  and  the  quaking  anxiety  in 
which  he  first  found  her. 

"You  are  a  fraud,  Dorothea,"  said  Daniel,  and  called  to  mind  the 
unpleasant  sensation  she  aroused  in  him  when  he  saw  her  for  the 
first  time  years  ago. 

In  the  meanwhile  the  maid  had  come  up  with  the  loaf  of  bread; 
»he  looked  with  astonishment  at  the  two  as  they  stood  there 

123 


124  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

gossiping,  and  immediately  took  the  child  into  her  charge,  con- 
scious as  she  was  of  her  own  dilatoriness.  With  a  few  piercing 
shrieks  she  drove  Cassar  back  from  the  gate,  and  as  he  ran  across 
the  street  Dorothea  cast  one  triumphant  glance  back  at  Daniel, 
feeling  that  she  had  proved  to  him  that  she  was  not  the  least 
afraid  of  the  dog. 


Frau  Benda  opened  the  door,  closed  it  without  saying  a  word, 
and  went  into  her  room.  She  had  had  a  violent  quarrel  with  her 
son,  who  had  just  informed  her  that  he  had  accepted  the  invitation 
of  a  learned  society  to  come  to  England  and  settle  down.  He  was 
to  start  at  the  end  of  spring.  Frau  Benda  was  tired  of  travelling; 
she  shuddered  at  the  thought  of  moving.  The  separation  from 
Friedrich  seemed  intolerable  to  her;  and  in  his  flight  from  the 
Fatherland  she  saw  a  final  and  premature  renunciation  of  all  the  op- 
portunities that  might  in  the  end  present  themselves  to  him  at  home. 

She  was  convinced  that  the  men  who  had  done  him  injustice 
would  in  time  come  to  see  the  error  of  their  ways  and  make  amends 
for  their  miscalculations.  She  was  particularly  anxious  that  he 
be  patient  until  satisfaction  had  been  done  him.  Moreover,  she 
knew  his  plans,  and  trembled  at  the  risks  to  which  he  was  volun- 
tarily exposing  himself:  she  felt  that  he  was  undertaking  a  task  for 
which  he  had  not  had  the  practical  experience. 

But  his  decision  was  irrevocable.  That  he  had  never  said  a 
word  about  it  to  Daniel,  had  not  even  insinuated  that  he  was  think- 
ing of  making  a  change,  was  due  to  the  peculiar  onesideness  of  their 
present  relation  to  each  other. 

Laughing  heartily,  Daniel  told  of  his  meeting  with  little  Doro- 
thea. "She  looks  to  me  as  though  she  will  give  old  Doderlein  a 
good  deal  to  think  about  in  the  days  to  come,"  said  Daniel. 

"You  played  him  a  pretty  scurvy  trick,  the  old  Doderlein,"  re- 
plied Benda.  "The  night  after  the  public  rehearsal  I  heard  him 
walking  up  and  down  for  hours  right  under  my  bed-room." 

"You   feel   sorry  for  him,  do  you?" 

"If  I  were  you,  I  would  go  to  him  and  beg  his  pardon." 

"Do  you  really  mean  it?"  exclaimed  Daniel.  Benda  said  noth- 
ing. Daniel  continued:  "To  tell  the  truth,  I  should  be  grateful 
to  him.  It  is  due  to  his  efforts  that  I  have  come  to  see,  more 
quickly  than  I  otherwise  would  have  done,  that  those  were  two  im- 
possible imitations  to  which  I  wanted  to  assure  a  place  in  the  sun. 


IN  MEMORY  OF  A  DREAM  FIGURE        125 

They  may  throw  me  down  if  they  wish;  I'll  get  up  again,  depend 
upon  it,  if,  and  even  if,  I  have  in  the  meantime  gulped  down  the 
whole  earth." 

Benda  smiled  a  gracious  smile.  "Yes,  you  die  at  each  fall,  and 
at  each  come-back  you  appear  a  new-made  man,"  he  said.  "That 
is  fine.  But  a  Doderlein  cannot  come  back,  once  his  contemporaries 
have  thrown  him  over.  The  very  thing  that  means  a  new  idea  to 
you  spells  his  ruin;  what  gives  you  pleasure,  voluptuous  pleasure,  is 
death  to  him." 

"Y-e-s,"  mumbled  Daniel,  "and  yet,  what  good  is  he?" 

"The  spirit  of  nature,  the  spirit  of  God,  is  a  total  stranger  to 
such  conceptions  as  harmfulness  and  usefulness,"  replied  Benda  in 
a  tone  of  serious  reflection.  "He  lives,  and  that  is  about  all  you 
can  say.  So  far  as  I  am  concerned,  I  have  not  the  slightest  reason 
to  defend  a  Doderlein  in  your  presence."  He  was  silent  for  a 
moment  and  took  a  deep  breath.  "I  cannot  speak  more  distinctly; 
somehow  or  other  I  cannot  quite  find  the  right  words,"  he  con- 
tinued in  a  disconcerted  way,  "but  the  point  is,  the  man  has  com- 
mitted a  crime  against  a  woman,  a  crime  so  malicious,  subtle,  and 
naive,  that  he  deserves  every  stigma  with  which  it  is  possible  to 
brand  him,  and  even  then  he  would  not  be  adequately  punished." 

"You  see,"  exclaimed  Daniel,  "he  is  not  only  a  miserable  musi- 
cian. And  that  is  the  way  it  always  is.  They  are  all  like  that. 
Oh,  these  bitter-sweet,  grinning,  pa  jama-bred,  match-making, 
ninnying,  super-smart  manikins — it  makes  your  blood  curdle  to  look 
at  one  of  them.  And  yet  a  real  man  has  got  to  run  the  gauntlet 
before  them  his  whole  life  long,  and  down  through  their  narrow 
little  alleys  at  that!" 

"Rather,"  said  Benda  with  bowed  head.  "It  is  a  tough,  clammy 
poison  pap.  If  you  stir  it  with  your  finger,  you  will  stick  fast, 
and  it  will  suck  the  very  marrow  out  of  your  bones.  But  you  are 
speaking  for  the  time  being  without  precise  knowledge  of  all  the 
pertinent  material,  as  we  say  in  science.  During  my  study  of  the 
cells  of  plants  and  animals,  I  came  to  see  that  a  so-called  funda- 
mental procreation  was  out  of  the  question.  I  gave  expression  to 
this  view  in  a  circle  of  professional  colleagues.  They  laughed  at 
me.  To-day  it  is  no  longer  possible  to  oppose  the  theory  I  then 
advanced.  One  of  my  former  friends  succeeded  in  making  certain 
combinations  of  acetic  acid,  crystallised  by  artifical  means.  When 
he  made  his  great  discovery  known,  one  of  the  assembled  gentle- 
men cried  out:  'Be  careful,  doctorettc,  or  your  amido  atoms  will 
get  out  of  their  cage.'  That  is  a  sample  of  the  base  and  treacherous 


126  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

fashion  in  which  we  are  treated  by  the  very  people  who  we  might 
think  were  our  warmest  friends,  for  they  are  apparently  trying  to 
reach  the  same  goal  that  we  are.  But  you!  The  world  may 
reject  you,  and  you  still  have  what  no  one  can  take  from  you. 
I  have  to  wait  in  patience  until  a  judge  hands  down  a  decision 
either  condemning  me  or  redeeming  me.  You?  Between  you 
and  me  there  is  the  same  difference  that  exists  between  the  seed 
which,  sunk  into  the  earth,  shoots  up  whether  it  rains  or  shines,  and 
some  kind  of  a  utensil  which  rusts  in  the  store  because  no  one  buys 
it." 

He  got  up  and  said:  "You  are  the  more  fortunate  of  us  two,  it 
behooves  me  therefore  to  be  the  more  merciful." 

Daniel  could  make  no  reply  that  would  console  him. 

As  he  went  home,  he  thought  of  the  fidelity  and  the  constant 
but  unassuming  help  he  had  received  from  Benda.  He  thought 
of  the  refined  and  delicate  consideration  of  his  friend.  He 
thought  especially  of  that  extraordinary  courtesy  which  was  so 
marked  in  him,  that,  for  example,  while  laughing  at  a  good  joke, 
Benda  would  stop  with  open  mouth  if  some  one  resumed  the  con- 
versation: he  did  not  wish  to  lose  anything  another  might  wish  to 
say  to  him. 

He  stopped.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he  had  neglected  the  op- 
portunity to  put  an  especially  reassuring,  cordial,  and  unforgettable 
force  into  his  final  handshake.  He  would  have  liked  to  turn  back. 
But  it  is  not  the  custom  to  turn  back;  no  one  in  truth  can  do  it. 

in 

Daniel  did  not  wish  to  take  the  mask  of  Zingarella  with  him 
on  his  tours.  To  expose  the  fragile  material  to  all  the  risks  as- 
sociated with  a  fortuitous  life  on  the  road  seemed  to  him  an  act 
of  impiety.  He  had  consequently  promised  Eleanore  to  leave  the 
mask  with  her  in  Jordan's  house  during  his  absence. 

Eleanore  opened  the  door;  Daniel  entered.  Gertrude  arose 
from  her  seat  at  the  table,  and  came  up  to  meet  him.  Her  face 
showed,  as  it  always  did  when  she  saw  him,  unmistakable  traces  of 
resignation,  willingness,  submissiveness. 

Daniel  walked  over  to  the  table,  took  the  newspaper  wrapping 
from  the  mask,  and  held  it  up  in  the  light  of  the  lamp. 

"How  beautiful!"  exclaimed  Gertrude,  whose  senses  were  now 
delighted  at  the  sight  of  any  object  that  appealed  to  one's  feelings. 

"Well,  take  it,  then,  Gertrude,"  said  Eleanore,  as  she  leaned  both 


IN  MEMORY  OF  A  DREAM  FIGURE        127 

elbows  on  the  top  of  the  table.  "Keep  it  with  you,"  she  continued 
somewhat  tensely,  when  she  noticed  that  Gertrude  was  looking  at 
Daniel  as  if  to  say,  "May  I?" 

"But  won't  he  give  it  to  both  of  us?"  replied  Gertrude  with  a 
covetous  smile. 

"No,  no,  he  simply  mentioned  me  for  courtesy's  sake,"  said 
Eleanore,  quite  positively. 

"Eleanore,  I  can  scarcely  tell  you  how  I  feel  toward  you,"  said 
Daniel,  half  confused,  half  angry,  and  then  stopped  with  con- 
spicuous suddenness  when  the  fiery  blue  of  her  eyes  fell  upon  him. 

"You?"  she  whispered  in  astonishment,  "you?" 

"Yes,  you,"  he  replied  emphatically.  "Later  I  can  tell  every- 
body; to-day  it  is  true  in  a  double  sense:  you  seem  to  me  just  like 
a  sister." 

He  had  laid  the  mask  to  one  side  and  extended  his  left  hand  to 
Eleanore,  and  then,  hesitating  at  first,  he  gave  Gertrude  his  right 
hand  with  a  most  decisive  gesture. 

Eleanore  straightened  up,  took  the  mask  of  Zingarella,  and  held  it 
up  before  her  face.  "Little  Brother,"  she  cried  out  in  a  teasing 
tone.  The  pale,  sweet  stone  face  was  wonderful  to  behold,  as  it 
was  raised  above  the  body  that  was  pulsing  with  life. 

And  Gertrude — for  one  second  she  hung  on  Daniel's  gaze,  a 
sigh  as  deep  as  the  murmuring  of  the  sea  sounded  in  her  bosom, 
and  then  she  lay  in  his  arms.  He  kissed  her  without  saying  a  word. 
His  face  was  gloomy,  his  brow  wrinkled. 

"Little  Brother"  sounded  out  from  behind  the  mask.  But  there 
was  no  banter  in  the  expression;  it  was  much  more  like  a  complaint, 
a  revelation  of  anguish:  "Little  Brother!" 

IV 

Daniel  had  left  the  city  long  ago.  Eleanore  chanced  to  meet 
Herr  Carovius.  He  forced  her  to  stop,  conducted  himself  in  such 
a  familiar  way,  and  talked  in  such  a  loud  voice  that  the  passers-by 
simpered.  He  asked  all  about  the  young  master,  meaning 
Daniel. 

He  told  her  that  "the  good  Eberhard" — it  was  his  way  of  re- 
ferring to  Baron  von  Auffenberg — had  gone  to  Munich  for  a  few 
months,  and  was  taking  up  with  spiritists  and  theosophists. 

"It  is  his  way  of  having  a  fling,"  said  Hcrr  Carovius,  grinning 
from  ear  to  ear.  "In  former  times,  when  young  noblemen  wished 
to  complete  their  education  and  have  a  little  lark  at  the  same  time, 


128  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

they  made  the  grand  tour  over  Europe.  Now-a-days  they  become 
penny-a-liners,  or  they  go  in  for  table-tipping.  Humanity  is  OB 
the  decline,  my  charming  little  girl.  To  study  the  flower  of  the 
nation  at  close  range  is  no  longer  an  edifying  occupation.  It  is 
rotten,  as  rotten,  I  tell  you,  as  last  winter's  apples.  There  is  con- 
sequently no  greater  pleasure  than  to  make  such  a  young  chap 
dance.  You  play,  he  dances;  you  whistle,  he  retrieves.  It  is  a 
real  treat!" 

He  laughed  hysterically,  and  then  had  a  coughing  spell.  He 
coughed  so  violently  that  the  black  cord  suspended  from  his  nose- 
glasses  became  tangled  about  a  button  on  his  great  coat,  and  his 
glasses  fell  from  his  nose.  In  his  awkwardness,  intensified  by  his 
short-sightedness,  he  fumbled  the  button  and  the  cord  with  his 
bony  fingers  until  Eleanore  came  to  the  rescue.  One  move,  and 
everything  was  again  in  order. 

Herr  Carovius  was  struck  dumb  with  surprise.  He  would  never 
have  imagined  that  a  young  girl  could  be  so  natural  and  unem- 
barrassed. He  suspected  a  trap:  was  she  making  fun  of  him,  or 
did  she  wish  to  do  him  harm?  It  had  never  occurred  to  him  that 
one  might  voluntarily  assist  him  when  in  distress. 

Suddenly  he  became  ashamed  of  himself;  he  lifted  his  eyes  and 
smiled  like  a  simpleton;  he  cast  a  glance  of  almost  dog-like  tender- 
ness at  Eleanore.  And  then,  without  saying  a  word,  without  even 
saying  good-bye  to  her,  he  hastened  across  the  street  to  hide  as  soon 
as  he  might  in  some  obscure  corner. 


One  afternoon  in  the  last  week  of  August,  the  Riidiger  sisters 
sent  the  boy  who  attended  to  their  garden  over  to  Eleanore  with 
the  urgent  request  that  she  call  as  soon  as  she  possibly  could.  Feel- 
ing that  some  misfortune  had  befallen  Daniel  and  that  the  sisters 
wished  to  tell  her  about  it,  Eleanore  was  not  slow  about  making  up 
her  mind:  exactly  one  quarter  of  an  hour  later  she  entered  the 
Riidigers'  front  door. 

A  lamentable  sight  greeted  her.  Each  of  the  three  sisters  was 
sitting  in  a  high-backed  chair,  her  arms  hanging  lifeless  from 
her  sides.  The  curtains  were  drawn;  in  the  shaded  light  their 
faces  looked  like  mummies.  Nor  was  the  general  impression  measur- 
ably brightened  by  the  "Medea,"  the  "Iphigenie,"  and  the 
"Roman  Woman"  that  hung  on  the  wall,  copies  of  the  paintings  of 
their  idol. 


IN  MEMORY  OF  A  DREAM  FIGURE        129 

Eleanorc's  greeting  was  not  returned.  She  did  not  dare  leave 
without  finding  what  was  the  matter,  and  the  silence  with  which 
she  was  received  was  broken  only  when  she  herself  decided  to  ask 
some  questions. 

Fraulein  Jasmina  took  out  her  handkerchief  and  dried  her  eyes. 
Fraulein  Saloma  looked  around  somewhat  like  a  judge  at  a  session 
of  court.  And  then  she  began  to  speak:  "We  three  lonely  women, 
forgotten  by  the  world,  have  asked  you  to  come  to  our  house  so 
that  we  might  tell  you  of  a  crime  that  has  been  committed  in  our 
innocent  home.  We  never  heard  of  it  until  this  morning.  It  is 
such  an  unexampled,  gruesome,  abominable  deed  that  we  have  been 
sitting  here  ever  since  it  was  brought  to  our  attention,  wringing  our 
hands  in  vain  attempt  to  make  up  our  minds  as  to  what  course  we 
should  pursue." 

Fraulein  Jasmina  and  Fraulein  Albertina  nodded  their  heads  in 
sadness  and  without  looking  up. 

"Can  we  put  the  unfortunate  girl  out  of  the  house?"  continued 
Fraulein  Saloma,  "can  we,  sisters?  No!  Can  we  afford  to  keep 
her?  No!  What  are  we  to  do  then?  She  is  an  orphan;  she  is 
all  alone,  abandoned  by  her  infamous  seducer,  and  exposed  to 
unmitigated  shame.  What  are  we  to  do?" 

"And  you,"  said  Fraulein  Saloma  turning  to  Eleanore,  "you 
who  are  bound  to  that  gifted  monster  by  ties  the  precise  nature  of 
which  we  are  in  no  position  to  judge,  you  are  to  show  us  a  way  out 
of  this  labyrinth  of  our  affliction." 

"If  I  only  knew  what  you  are  talking  about,"  said  Eleanore, 
a  great  burden  falling  from  her  heart  as  she  realised  that  her  initial 
fears  were  groundless.  "By  the  monster  you  evidently  mean  Daniel 
Nothafft.  What  crime  has  he  committed?" 

Fraulein  Saloma  was  indignant  at  the  flippancy  of  her  manner. 
She  rose  to  her  full  stature,  and  said  with  punitive  lips:  "He  has 
made  our  maid  an  ordinary  prostitute,  and  the  consequences  are  no 
longer  to  be  concealed.  Do  you  know  what  we  are  talking  about 
now? " 

Eleanore  uttered  a  faint  "Oh!"  and  blushed  to  the  roots  of  her 
hair.  In  her  embarrassment  she  opened  her  mouth  to  laugh,  but 
she  came  very  near  to  crying. 

Her  saddened  feelings  slowly  crept  back  to  Daniel,  and  as  the 
picture  of  him  rose  before  her  mind's  eye,  she  turned  from  it  in 
disgust.  But  she  did  not  wish  to  allow  this  picture  to  remain  in  her 
memory:  it  was  too  flabby,  petty,  and  selfish.  Before  she  knew 
what  she  was  doing,  she,  as  a  woman,  had  pardoned  him.  Then 


i3o  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

she  shuddered,  opened  wide  her  eyes,  and  resumed  her  accustomed 
cheerfulness.  She  was  again  in  complete  control  of  herself. 

The  court  had  in  the  meanwhile  examined  the  silent  woman 
with  stern  scrutiny:  "Where  is  Daniel  Nothafft  at  present?"  asked 
Fraulein  Saloma. 

"I  do  not  know,"  replied  Eleanore,  "he  hasn't  written  for  over 
three  weeks." 

"We  must  request  you  to  inform  him  at  once  of  the  condition  of 
the  prostitute,  for  so  long  as  such  a  person  is  in  our  house,  we 
cannot  sleep  at  night  nor  rest  by  day." 

"I  am  sorry  that  you  take  the  matter  so  to  heart,"  said  Eleanore, 
"and  it  is  a  rather  disagreeable  affair.  But  I  have  no  right  to  mix 
myself  up  in  it,  nor  have  I  the  least  desire  to  do  so." 

The  three  sisters  received  this  statement  with  despair;  they  wrung 
their  hands.  They  would  rather  die,  they  said,  then  meet  this 
voluptuary  face  to  face  again ;  they  would  endure  all  manner  of 
martyrdom  before  they  would  have  him  come  in.  All  three  spoke 
at  once;  they  threatened  Eleanore;  they  implored  her.  Jasmina 
told  with  bated  breath  how  Meta  had  come  to  them  and  confessed 
the  whole  business.  Albertina  swore  that  there  was  not  another 
living  soul  on  earth  who  could  help  them  out  of  this  shameless 
situation.  Saloma  said  that  there  was  nothing  for  them  to  do  but 
to  send  the  wicked  creature  back  to  the  streets  where  she  belonged. 

Eleanore  was  silent.  She  had  fixed  her  eyes  on  the  "Medea,"  and 
was  doing  some  hard  thinking.  Finally  she  came  to  a  conclusion: 
she  asked  whether  she  might  speak  to  Meta.  Filled  at  once  with 
anxiety  and  hope,  Saloma  asked  her  what  she  wanted  with  Meta. 
She  replied  that  she  would  tell  them  later  what  her  purpose  was. 
Fraulein  Jasmina  showed  her  the  way  to  Meta's  room. 

When  Meta  caught  sight  of  Eleanore,  her  features  became  at 
once  beclouded  in  sombre  amazement. 

She  was  sitting  at  the  open  window  of  her  attic  room  knitting. 
She  got  up  and  looked  into  the  face  of  the  beautiful  girl  with- 
out saying  a  word.  Eleanore  was  moved  on  seeing  the  tall,  youth- 
ful figure,  and  yet  it  was  quite  impossible  for  her  to  subdue  a  feel- 
ing of  horror. 

At  Eleanore's  very  first  words,  Meta  began  to  sob.  Eleanore 
comforted  her;  she  asked  her  where  she  was  planning  to  go  during 
her  confinement. 

"Why,  there  are  institutions,"  she  murmured,  holding  her  apron 
before  her  face,  "I  can  go  to  one  of  them." 

Eleanore  sat  down  on   the  side  of  the  bed.     She  unrolled  her 


IN  MEMORY  OF  A  DREAM  FIGURE        131 

plans  to  the  girl  with  a  delicacy  and  consideration  just  as  if  she 
were  speaking  to  a  pampered  lady.  She  spoke  with  a  silver- 
clear  vivacity  just  as  if  she  were  discussing  some  hardy  prank. 
Meta  looked  at  her  at  first  with  the  air  of  one  oppressed;  later  she 
assumed  the  attitude  of  a  grateful  listener. 

Pained  by  the  ethereal  and  inhuman  primness  of  her  three  em- 
ployers, angry  at  the  man  who  had  abandoned  her  to  her  present 
fate,  and  fighting  against  the  reproaches  of  her  own  conscience, 
Meta  became  as  wax  in  Eleanore's  hands,  submissive,  obedient,  and 
appreciative. 

The  Rudiger  sisters,  all  but  bursting  with  curiosity  to  know 
what  Eleanore  had  in  mind,  could  draw  nothing  from  her  other 
than  that  she  was  going  to  take  Meta  away  and  that  Meta  (was 
agreed. 

VI 

It  was  Eleanore's  intention  to  take  the  pregnant  girl  to  Daniel's 
mother  at  Eschenbach. 

She  knew  of  the  dissension  between  Daniel  and  his  mother. 
She  knew  that  the  two  avoided  each  other's  presence;  that  Daniel 
in  his  defiance  felt  it  his  duty  to  avenge  himself  for  the  lack  of 
love  on  the  part  of  his  mother.  Back  of  the  picture  of  the  un- 
loving and  impatient  son  she  saw  that  of  an  old  woman  worrying 
her  life  away  in  silent  care. 

She  had  often  given  way  to  a  painful  feeling  of  sympathy  when 
she  thought  of  the  unknown  mother  of  her  friend.  It  seemed 
to  her  now  as  if  she  could  play  the  role  of  an  emissary  of  re- 
conciliation; as  if  it  were  her  duty  to  take  the  deserted  woman  here 
to  the  deserted  woman  there;  as  if  she  were  called  to  take  the 
mother-to-be  to  the  mother  who  had  just  reasons  for  regretting  that 
she  had  ever  been  a  mother. 

It  seemed  to  her  as  if  she  must  create  a  bond  which  could  not 
even  be  sundered  by  crime,  to  say  nothing  of  misunderstanding  or 
caprice;  it  seemed  to  her  that  Daniel  had  to  effect  a  reconciliation 
in  the  home  of  the  Riidigers  as  well  as  in  that  of  his  mother; 
and  that,  conscious  as  she  was  of  doing  what  was  right,  she  would 
meet  with  no  opposition,  would  have  no  settling  of  accounts  to 
fear. 

She  also  took  the  practical  side  of  the  matter  into  careful  consid- 
eration: Meta  would  have  no  trouble  in  making  her  living  in 
Eschenbach;  she  could  help  Daniel's  mother,  or  she  could  do  day 
work  among  the  peasants. 


i32  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

When  the  child  was  born,  Daniel's  mother  would  have  a  picture 
of  young  life  to  look  at;  it  would  alleviate  her  longing;  it  would 
appease  her  bitterness  to  see  a  child  of  Daniel's  own  blood. 

Eleanore  told  the  people  at  home  that  she  was  going  on  an 
excursion  with  a  school  friend  to  the  Ansbach  country.  She 
studied  the  time-table,  and  wrote  a  postcard  to  Meta  telling  her 
to  be  at  the  station  at  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning. 

Jordan  approved  of  Eleanore's  outing,  though  he  warned  her 
against  bandits  and  cold  drinks.  Gertrude  was  not  wholly  without 
suspicion.  She  had  a  feeling  that  something  was  wrong,  that 
these  unspoken  words  referred  to  Daniel,  for  she  was  always  think- 
ing about  him. 

If  she  received  a  letter  from  him,  which  was  very  rare,  she 
would  let  it  lie  on  the  table  for  a  long  while,  imagining  that  it 
was  full  of  the  most  glorious  declarations  of  his  love  for  her,  ex- 
pressed in  language  which  she  could  not  command.  In  a  sort  of 
moon-struck  ecstasy  she  made  an  inner,  dreamed  music  out  of  what 
he  wrote. 

When  she  read  his  letter,  she  was  satisfied  merely  to  see  the 
words  he  had  written  and  to  feel  the  paper  on  which  his  hand  had 
rested.  She  submitted  in  silence  to  the  laws  of  his  nature,  which 
would  not  permit  him  to  be  excessive  in  his  remarks  or  unusually 
communicative.  Each  of  his  dry  reports  was  a  tiding  of  glad 
joy  to  her,  though  her  own  replies  were  just  as  dry,  giving  not 
the  slightest  picture  of  the  enraptured  soul  from  which  they 
came. 

She  felt  that  Eleanore  was  lying,  and  that  the  lie  she  was  telling 
was  somehow  connected  with  Daniel.  That  is  why  she  went  up 
to  Eleanore's  bed  in  the  dead  of  night,  and  whispered  into  her 
ear:  "Tell  me,  Eleanore,  has  anything  happened  to  Daniel?" 

But  before  Eleanore  could  reply,  reassured  by  her  sister's 
astonished  behaviour,  and  angry  at  herself  for  having  suspected 
Eleanore  of  a  falsehood,  she  hurried  back  to  her  own  bed.  She 
had  come  to  think  more  and  more  of  her  sister  every  day. 

"How  sne  must  love  him,"  thought  Eleanore  to  herself,  and 
buried  her  smiling  face  in  the  pillow. 


"Wait  for  me  at  the  fountain,"  said  Eleanore  to  her  companion, 
as  she  crossed  the  market  place  in  Eschenbach  at  mid-day:  "I'll  call 
for  you  as  soon  as  everything  has  been  discussed." 


IN  MEMORY  OF  A  DREAM  FIGURE        133 

The  coachman  pointed  out  the  little  house  of  the  widow 
Nothafft. 

A  woman  with  a  stern  face  and  unusually  large  eye-brows  asked 
her  what  she  wanted  as  she  entered  the  little  shop,  which  smelled  of 
vinegar  and  cheese. 

Eleanore  replied  that  she  would  like  to  talk  with  her  for  a  few 
minutes  quite  undisturbed  and  alone. 

The  profound  seriousness  of  Marian's  features,  which  re- 
sembled more  than  anything  else  an  incurable  suffering,  did  not 
disappear.  She  closed  the  shop  and  took  Eleanore  into  the  living 
room,  and,  without  saying  a  word,  pointed  to  one  chair  and  took 
another  herself. 

Above  the  leather  sofa  hung  the  picture  of  Gottfried  Nothafft, 
Eleanore  looked  at  it  for  a  long  while. 

"Dear  mother,"  she  finally  began,  laying  her  hand  on  Marian's 
knee.  "I  am  bringing  you  something  from  Daniel." 

Marian  twitched.  "Good  or  bad?"  she  asked.  She  had  not 
heard  from  Daniel  for  twenty-two  months.  "Who  are  you?" 
she  asked,  "what  have  you  to  do  with  him?" 

Eleanore  saw  at  once  that  she  would  have  to  be  extremely 
cautious  if  she  did  not  wish  to  offend  the  sensitive — and  offended — 
woman  by  some  inconsiderate  remark.  With  all  the  discrimination 
she  could  command  she  laid  her  case  before  Daniel's  mother. 

And  behold — the  unusual  became  usual,  just  as  the  natural 
seemed  strange.  Eleanore  pictured  Daniel's  hardships  and  rise  to 
fame,  boasted  loyally  of  his  talents  and  of  the  enthusiasm  for 
him  of  those  who  believed  in  him,  referred  to  his  future  renown, 
and  insisted  that  all  his  guilt,  including  that  toward  his  mother,  be 
forgotten  and  forgiven. 

Marian  reviewed  the  past;  she  understood  a  great  many  things 
now  that  were  not  clear  to  her  years  ago;  she  understood  Daniel 
better;  she  understood  virtually  everything,  except  this  girl's 
relation  to  him  and  the  girl  herself.  If  it  was  peculiar  that  this 
strange  woman  had  to  come  to  her  to  tell  her  who  Daniel  was 
and  what  he  meant  to  the  people,  it  was  wholly  inexplicable  that 
she  had  brought  some  one  with  her  who  had  been  the  sweetheart 
of  the  very  man  for  whom  she  now  showed  unreserved  affection. 

Eleanore  read  Marian's  face  and  became  a  trifle  more  deliber-. 
ate.  It  occurred  to  her,  too,  to  ask  herself  a  few  questions:  What 
am  I,  any  way?  What  is  the  matter  with  me? 

She  could  not  give  a  satisfactory  answer  to  these  questions.  His 
friend?  He  my  friend?  The  words  seemed  to  contain  too  much 


134  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

peace  and  calm.  Brother?  Companion?  Either  of  these  words 
brought  up  pictures  of  intimate  association,  inner  relationship= 
Little  Brother!  Yes,  that  is  what  she  had  called  out  to  him  once 
from  behind  the  mask.  Well  then:  Little  sister  behind  the  mask? 

Yes,  that  was  what  it  should  be:  Little  sister  behind  the  mask. 
She  had  to  have  a  hiding  place  for  so  many  things  of  which  she 
had  only  a  vague  presentiment  and  which  in  truth  she  did  not 
care  to  visualise  in  brighter  outlines.  A  subdued  heart,  a  captured 
heart — it  glows,  it  cools  off,  you  lift  it  up,  you  weigh  it  down  just 
as  fate  decrees.  To  be  patient,  not  to  betray  anything,  that  was 
the  all-important  point:  Little  sister  behind  the  mask — that  was  the 
idea. 

Marian  said:  "My  child,  God  himself  has  inspired  you  with 
the  idea  of  coming  to  me  and  telling  me  about  Daniel.  I  will  put 
fresh  flowers  in  the  window  as  I  did  some  time  ago,  and  I  will  leave 
the  front  door  open  so  that  the  swallows  can  fly  in  and  build  their 
nests.  Perhaps  he  will  think  then  from  time  to  time  of  his 
mother." 

Then  she  asked  to  see  Meta.  Eleanore  went  out,  and  returned 
in  a  few  minutes  with  her  charge.  Marian  looked  at  the  preg- 
nant girl  compassionately.  Meta  was  ill  at  ease;  to  every  ques- 
tion that  was  put  to  her  she  made  an  incoherent  reply.  She  could 
stay  with  her,  said  Marian,  but  she  would  have  to  work,  for 
there  was  no  other  way  for  the  two  to  live.  The  girl  referred  to 
the  fact  that  she  had  already  worked  out  for  four  years,  and  that 
no  one  had  ever  accused  her  of  lack  of  industry  or  willingness. 
Thereupon  Marian  told  her  she  would  have  to  be  very  quiet, 
that  the  people  in  the  neighbourhood  were  very  curious,  and  that 
if  she  ever  gave  them  her  family  history  she  would  have  to  leave. 

This  attended  to,  Eleanore  went  on  her  way.  She  refused 
quite  emphatically  to  stay  for  dinner.  Marian  thought  that  she 
was  in  a  hurry  to  catch  the  next  coach,  and  accompanied  her  across 
the  square.  They  promised  to  write  to  each  other;  before 
Eleanore  got  into  the  rickety  old  coach,  Marian  kissed  her  on  the 
cheek. 

She  watched  the  coach  until  it  had  passed  out  through  the  city 
gate.  A  drunken  man  poked  her  in  the  ribs,  the  blacksmith  called 
to  her  as  she  passed  by,  the  doctor's  wife  leaned  out  of  the  window 
and  asked  her  who  the  cityfied  lady  was.  Marian  paid  not  the 
slightest  attention  to  any  of  them;  she  went  quietly  and  slowly 
back  to  her  house. 


IN  MEMORY  OF  A  DREAM  FIGURE        135 


Thus  it  came  about  that  five  weeks  later  a  daughter  of  Daniel 
Nothafft  saw  the  light  of  the  world  under  Marian's  roof. 

As  soon  as  the  child  was  born,  Marian  took  a  great  liking  to  it, 
despite  the  fact  that  she  had  thought  of  it  before  its  birth  only 
with  aversion.  It  was  a  fine  little  creature:  its  little  legs  and  arms 
were  delicately  formed,  its  head  was  small,  there  was  something 
peculiarly  human  about  its  first  cries  and  laughter,  and  it  showed 
quite  distinctly  that  there  was  something  noble  in  its  character. 

The  people  of  Eschenbach  were  astonished.  "Where  did  the 
child  come  from?"  they  asked.  "Who  is  its  mother?  Who  is  its 
father?"  The  records  in  the  office  of  the  registrar  of  births  showed 
that  Meta  Steinhager  was  the  mother  of  the  illegitimate  child, 
Eva  Steinhager,  and  that  its  father  was  unknown. 

It  was  to  be  presumed,  however,  that  widow  Nothafft  knew  the 
details.  The  old  women,  and  the  young  ones  too,  came  on  this 
account  more  frequently  now  than  ever  to  her  shop.  They  wanted 
to  know  how  the  little  thing  was  getting  along,  whether  its  milk 
agreed  with  it,  whether  it  had  begun  to  teethe,  whether  it  would 
speak  German  or  some  foreign  tongue,  and  so  on. 

In  order  to  quiet  them,  Marian  told  them  that  Meta  was  a  poor 
relative  and  that  she  was  bringing  up  the  child  at  her  own  expense. 
It  was  not  difficult  to  make  this  story  seem  plausible,  for  Meta  had 
very  little  to  do  with  her  daughter.  Shortly  after  her  confine- 
ment, she  got  a  job  with  a  baker  over  in  Dinkelsbiihl,  and  never 
visited  Eva  more  than  once  a  month.  She  cared  very  little  for  the 
child.  A  young  fellow  in  the  bakery  had  fallen  in  love  with 
Meta,  and  wanted  to  marry  her  and  move  to  America. 

At  Christmas  they  were  married,  and  left  the  country  at  once. 
Marian  was  glad  of  it:  the  child  now  belonged  entirely  to  her. 

Though  the  people  soon  became  accustomed  to  the  existence  of 
their  diminutive  fellow-townswoman,  Eva  was  and  remained  the 
mysterious  child  of  Eschenbach. 

IX 

The  opera  company  made  its  rounds  through  the  small  cities  that 
lie  between  the  Danube  and  the  Main,  the  Saale  and  the  Neckar — 
and  there  are  many  of  them, — its  stay  in  any  one  place  depending 
naturally  on  the  interest  shown  by  the  public. 


i36  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

"The  province  is  the  enchanted  Sleeping  Beauty,"  said  the 
impresario  Dormaul  to  Wurzelmann  and  Daniel,  "the  province  is 
still  asleep,  and  you  must  rouse  it  from  its  slumbers  by  pressing 
the  kiss  of  the  Muse  on  its  forehead." 

But  the  impresario  was  unwilling  to  open  his  pockets.  The 
princes  who  were  to  release  Sleeping  Beauty  did  not  have  sufficient 
means  to  make  a  presentable  appearance,  while  their  retinue  was 
seedy  looking  indeed. 

The  tenor  had  long  since  passed  the  zenith  of  his  career. 
His  massive  paunch  placed  deadening  strictures  on  his  credentials 
as  the  impersonator  of  heroes.  The  buffo  was  an  inveterate  toper 
who  had  often  been  placed  behind  bars  by  the  police  for  his 
nocturnal  excesses.  The  barytone  had  a  big  lawsuit  on  his  hands 
about  an  estate;  his  lawyers  were  two  stars  of  obscurity  from  a  small 
village;  and  at  times  he  became  so  vexed  at  the  cuts  of  his  opponents 
that  he  lost  his  voice.  The  soprano  was  incessantly  quarrelling  with 
her  colleagues,  and  the  alto  was  an  intriguing  vixen  quite  with- 
out talent.  In  addition  to  these  there  were  a  dozen  or  so  super- 
numaries  and  under-studies,  who  were  bored,  who  played  practical 
jokes  on  each  other,  drew  starvation  wages,  and  had  never  learned 
anything. 

The  musicians  were  also  a  sorry  lot.  It  was  not  rare  that  one  or 
the  other  of  them  had  pawned  his  instrument.  Once  a  perform- 
ance had  to  be  postponed  because  the  violinists  had  stayed  over 
their  time  at  a  village  dance  where  they  were  playing  in  order  to 
add  to  their  paltry  income.  The  inspector,  who  was  scene-shifter, 
promoter,  ticket  seller,  and  publicity  agent  all  in  one,  and  who 
was  not  equal  to  any  of  these  positions,  took  French  leave  in  the 
second  year  and  ran  off  with  one  of  the  chorus  girls,  taking  the 
box-office  receipts  for  the  evening  with  him. 

One  time  the  costumes  were  sent  to  the  wrong  address,  with  the 
result  that  Boieldieu's  "La  Dame  Blanche"  had  to  be  played  in 
woollen  frocks,  patched  velvet  skirts,  filthy  cotton  blouses,  and 
French  wadding. 

Another  time  the  mob  in  "Martha"  consisted  of  a  distempered 
woman,  a  waiter  brought  in  at  the  last  minute  from  a  herring  res- 
taurant, and  the  door-keeper  of  an  orphanage:  the  chorus  had  gone 
on  a  strike  because  their  salaries  had  been  held  up. 

In  Karlstadt  the  final  act  of  the  "Merry  Wives  of  Windsor" 
could  not  be  played,  because  during  the  intermission  Falstaff  and 
Mrs.  Quickly  had  got  into  a  fight,  and  the  lady  had  scratched  a 
huge  piece  of  skin  from  the  singer's  nose. 


IN  MEMORY  OF  A  DREAM  FIGURE        137 

If  these  musical  strollers,  as  acting-director  Wurzelmann  called 
the  company,  nevertheless  made  some  money,  it  was  due  to  the 
superhuman  efforts  of  Daniel.  Wurzelmann  was  always  mixed  up 
in  some  kind  of  love  affair,  introduced  in  time  a  ruinous  system  of 
favouritism,  and  became  lazier  and  lazier  as  the  weeks  passed  by. 

Daniel  had  to  pull  the  singers  out  of  their  beds  to  get  them  to 
go  to  rehearsals;  Daniel  had  to  help  out  with  the  singing  when 
the  chorus  was  too  weak;  Daniel  had  to  distribute  the  roles,  tame 
down  refractory  women,  and  make  brainless  dilettants  subordinate 
their  noisy  opinions  to  the  demands  of  a  work  which  he  himself 
generally  detested.  He  had  to  drill  beginners,  abbreviate  scores, 
transpose  voices,  and  produce  effects  with  lamentably  inadequate 
material.  And  from  morning  to  night  he  had  to  wage  war  eternal 
against  libellous  action,  inattention,  and  inability. 

Nobody  loved  him  for  this;  they  merely  feared  him.  They 
swore  they  would  take  vengeance  on  him,  but  they  knuckled  under 
whenever  they  seemed  to  have  a  chance.  He  had  a  habit  of  treating 
them  with  crushing  coldness,  he  could  make  them  look  like  crimi- 
nals. He  had  a  look  of  icy  contempt  that  made  them  clench  their 
fists  when  his  eye  fell  on  them.  But  they  bowed  before  a  power 
which  seemed  uncanny  to  them,  though  it  consisted  in  nothing  more 
than  the  fact  that  he  did  his  duty  while  they  did  not. 

At  the  close  of  each  quarter,  the  impresario  Dormaul  appeared 
on  the  scene  to  take  invoice  in  person.  His  presence  was  invariably 
celebrated  by  a  gala  performance  of  "Fra  Diavolo,"  or  "The 
Daughter  of  the  Regiment,"  or  "Frou  Frou."  On  these  occasions 
the  buffo  did  not  get  drunk,  the  barytone  rested  from  the  torments 
of  his  lawsuit,  the  alto  had  a  charming  smile  for  the  sympathetic 
house,  the  soprano  was  as  peaceful  as  a  mine  immediately  after  an 
explosion.  Not  one  of  the  chorus  stayed  too  long  in  the  cafe; 
and  since  Wurzelmann  directed,  and  the  orchestra  did  not  have  to 
feel  the  burning,  basilisk  eye  of  Kapellmeister  Nothafft  resting 
on  it  and  floating  over  it,  it  played  with  more  precision  and 
produced  a  more  pleasing  feast  for  the  ears  than  ordinarily. 

Dormaul  was  not  stingy  with  his  praise.  "Bravo  Wurzelmann," 
he  cried,  "one  more  short  year  of  hard  work,  and  I'll  get  you  a 
position  in  the  Royal  Opera  House." 

"Nothafft  will  likewise  rise  to  fame  and  office,"  he  said,  "al- 
though I  was  so  stupid  as  to  publish  his  music,  and  now  all  this 
waste  paper  is  lying  in  my  shop  like  a  pound  of  brick  cheese  in  a 
sick  stomach." 

The  impresario  Dormaul  wore  black  and  white  striped   trousers 


i38  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

of  imported  cut,  a  vest  that  looked  like  a  bit  of  tapestry  made  of 
pressed  leather,  a  massive  gold  watch-chain  from  which  dangled 
countless  fobs,  a  blood  red  tie  with  a  diamond  as  big  as  the 
Koh-i-noor  and  as  false  a;  an  April  sun,  and  a  grey  silk  tile  hat 
which  he  lifted  only  when  in  the  presence  of  privy  councillors, 
generals,  and  police  presidents. 

To  a  man  of  this  kind  Daniel  had  the  boldness  to  remark: 
"Had  you  eaten  cheese  you  would  at  least  have  digested  it.  Your 
crowded  shops  are  after  all  more  desirable  in  my  estimation  than 
many  a  head  which  would  remain  empty  even  if  some  one  stuffed 
the  whole  of  the  'Passion  of  St.  Matthew'  into  it." 

Dormaul  decided  to  laugh.  "Oho,  my  good  fellow,"  he  said, 
and  pushed  his  tile  hat  on  to  the  back  of  his  head,  "you  are  getting 
all  puffed  up.  Look  out  that  you  don't  burst.  You  remember 
the  story  of  Hanschen:  He  was  awfully  proud  of  his  porridge 
while  sitting  behind  the  stove;  but  when  he  went  out  on  to  the 
street,  he  fell  into  the  puddle." 

The  little  slave  tittered.  Daniel  had  known  for  a  long  time 
that  Wurzelmann  was  working  against  him.  Quite  innocently,  to 
be  sure,  for  half  souls  can  admire  and  betray  at  the  same  time. 

"Envy  is  my  only  virtue,"  said  Wurzelmann  quite  openly,  "I 
am  a  genius  at  envying." 

Daniel  was  not  equal  to  such  cynicism.  He  was  stupefied  by 
Wurzelmann's  remark,  but  he  did  not  break  with  the  little  slave; 
he  continued  to  use  him.  He  was  the  only  individual  with  whom 
he  could  speak  of  himself  and  his  work.  And  though  he  was 
overburdened,  owing  to  his  present  position,  he  nevertheless  man- 
aged to  steal  a  few  hours  every  day  for  his  own  work.  And  the 
pressure  from  all  sides  fanned  the  flame  within  him. 

It  was  then  that  he  staked  out  his  field  in  order  to  be  master 
in  his  own  realm;  he  turned  to  the  song;  he  chose  the  clear, 
restrained  forms  of  chamber  music;  he  studied  with  unwavering 
industry  the  old  masters;  he  deduced  from  their  works  the  right 
rules  of  composition;  and  he  set  these  up  before  him  like  a  dam 
against  arbitrariness  and  resthetic  demoralisation. 

He  was  not  unmindful  of  the  fact  that  by  so  doing  he  was 
cutting  himself  off  from  association  with  men,  and  renouncing, 
probably  forever,  the  satisfaction  that  comes  from  monetary  reward 
and  outward  success.  He  knew,  too,  that  he  was  not  making  his 
life  easier  by  adopting  this  course,  nor  was  he  gaining  the  popular 
favour  of  the  emotionalists. 

When  he  would  sit  in  a  cafe  late  at  night  and  show  Wurzelmann 


IN  MEMORY  OF  A  DREAM  FIGURE        139 

one  score  after  another,  sing  a  few  bars  in  order  to  bring  out  the 
quality  of  a  song,  improvise  an  accompaniment,  praise  a  melody, 
or  explain  the  peculiarity  of  a  certain  rhythm,  he  surprised  the 
little  slave,  and  drove  him  into  an  attitude  of  self-defence.  All 
this  was  fundamentally  new  to  Wurzelmann.  If  Daniel  proved 
that  the  new  was  not  new  after  all,  that  the  trouble  lay  in  the 
fact  that  the  deranged  and  shattered  souls  of  the  present  century 
had  lost  the  power  to  assimilate  unbroken  lines  in  their  complete 
purity,  Wurzelmann  at  once  became  an  advocate  of  modern  free- 
dom, insisting  that  each  individual  should  be  allowed  to  do  all 
that  his  innate  talent  enabled  him  to  vindicate. 

Daniel  remained  unconvinced.  Was  not  the  whole  of  life,  the 
rich  contents  of  human  existence,  to  be  found  in  the  beautiful 
vessel  that  had  been  proved  long  ago?  Could  any  one  say  that  he 
was  displaying  a  spirit  of  greediness  in  his  love  for  the  classical? 
And  were  joy  and  sorrow,  however  intense,  less  perceptible  when 
expressed  through  a  concise,  well  ordered  medium?  "What  a 
distorted  view  a  man  takes  when  he  becomes  so  narrow-minded," 
thought  Daniel.  "His  ambition  makes  it  impossible  for  him  to 
feel;  his  very  wit  militates  against  clear  thinking." 

Thus  they  went  from  town  to  town,  month  after  month,  year 
after  year.  The  company  had  in  time  its  traditions,  its  chronique 
scandaleuse,  its  oft-tested  drawing  cards,  its  regular  patrons,  its 
favourite  stands,  and  its  stands  that  it  avoided  if  humanly  possible. 

The  local  paper  greeted  them  editorially;  the  children  stood  on 
the  sidewalks  to  gape  their  fill  at  the  ladies  from  the  theatre;  the 
retired  major  bought  a  reserved  seat  for  the  first  performance;  the 
barber  offered  his  services;  and  the  faculty  of  the  Latin  School 
held  a  special  meeting  to  decide  whether  they  should  permit  their 
pupils  to  go  to  the  opera  or  not.  The  Young  Men's  Christian 
Association  voiced  its  protest  against  the  nude  shoulders  of  the 
artistes;  the  members  of  the  Casino  turned  up  their  noses  at  the 
achievements  of  the  company;  the  police  insisted  that  the  booth 
or  hotel  lobby  in  which  they  performed  should  be  fireproof;  the 
wife  of  the  mining  engineer  fell  in  love  with  the  barytone,  and 
her  husband  hired  a  number  of  hoodlums  to  take  their  places  in 
the  gallery  and  hoot  and  hiss  when  the  time  came.  And  those 
who  nag  under  any  circumstances  requested  more  cheerfulness. 
They  found  the  "Czar  and  Zimmermann"  too  dull,  the  "Muette 
de  Portici"  too  hackneyed.  They  insisted  on  "Madame  Angot" 
and  "Orpheus  in  the  Under  World." 

There  was  always  something  wrong. 


I4o  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

Daniel  shuddered  at  the  mere  presence  of  these  people;  he  was 
repelled  by  their  occupations,  their  amusements,  and  the  cadavers 
of  their  ideals.  He  did  not  like  the  way  they  laughed;  nor  could 
he  stand  their  dismal  feelings.  He  despised  the  houses  out  of 
which  they  crept,  the  detectives  at  their  windows,  their  butcher 
shops  and  hotels,  their  newspapers,  their  Sundays  and  their  work 
days.  The  world  was  pressing  hard  upon  him.  He  had  to  look 
these  people  straight  in  the  face,  and  they  compelled  him  to  haggle 
with  them  for  money,  words,  feelings,  and  ideas. 

He  learned  in  time,  however,  to  see  other  things:  the  forests  on 
the  banks  of  the  Main;  the  great  meadows  in  the  hills  of  Fran- 
conia;  the  melancholy  plains  of  Central  Germany;  the  richly 
variegated  slopes  of  the  Jura  Mountains;  the  old  cities  with  their 
walls  and  cathedrals,  their  gloomy  alleys  and  deserted  castles.  In 
time  he  came  to  see  people  in  a  different  and  easier  light.  He 
saw  the  young  and  the  old,  the  fair  and  the  homely,  the  cheerful 
and  the  sad,  the  poor — and  the  rich  so  far  away  and  peaceful. 
They  gave  him,  without  discrimination,  of  their  wealth  and  their 
poverty.  They  laid  their  youth  and  their  old  age,  their  beauty 
and  their  ugliness,  their  joys  and  their  sorrows,  at  his  feet. 

And  the  country  gave  him  the  forests  and  the  fields,  the  brooks 
and  the  rivers,  the  clouds  and  the  birds,  and  everything  that  is 
under  the  earth. 


It  was  winter.  The  company  came  to  Ansbach,  where  they  were 
to  play  in  the  former  Margrave  Theatre.  "Freischiitz"  was  to  be 
given,  and  Daniel  had  held  a  number  of  special  rehearsals. 

But  a  violent  snow  storm  broke  out  on  the  day  of  the  perform- 
ance; scarcely  two  dozen  people  attended. 

How  differently  the  violins  sounded  in  this  auditorium!  The 
voices  were,  as  it  seemed,  automatically  well  balanced;  there  was 
in  them  an  element  of  calm  and  assurance.  The  orchestra? 
Daniel  had  so  charmed  it  that  it  obeyed  him  as  if  it  were  a  single 
instrument.  At  the  close  of  the  last  act,  an  old,  grey-haired  man 
stepped  up  to  Daniel,  smiled,  took  him  by  the  hand,  and  thanked 
him.  It  was  Spindler. 

Daniel  went  home  with  him;  they  talked  about  the  past,  the 
future,  men  and  music.  They  could  not  stop  talking;  nor  could 
the  snow  stop  falling.  This  did  not  disturb  them.  They  met 


IN  MEMORY  OF  A  DREAM  FIGURE        141 

again  on  the  following  day;  but  at  the  end  of  the  week  Spindler 
was  taken  ill,  and  had  to  go  to  bed. 

As  Daniel  entered  the  residence  of  his  old  friend  one  morning, 
he  learned  that  he  had  died  suddenly  the  night  before.  It  had 
been  a  peaceful  death. 

On  the  third  day,  Daniel  followed  the  funeral  procession  to  the 
cemetery.  When  he  left  the  cemetery — there  were  but  few  people 
at  the  funeral — he  went  out  into  the  snow-covered  fields,  and  spent 
the  remainder  of  the  day  walking  around. 

That  same  night  he  sat  down  in  his  wretched  quarters,  and 
began  his  composition  of  Goethe's  "Harzreise  im  Winter."  It 
was  one  of  the  profoundest  and  rarest  of  works  ever  created  by  a 
musician,  but  it  was  destined,  like  the  most  of  Daniel's  composi- 
tions, not  to  be  preserved  to  posterity.  This  was  due  to  a  tragic 
circumstance. 


XI 

In  the  spring  of  1886,  the  company  went  north  to  Hesse,  then 
to  Thuringia,  gave  performances  in  a  few  of  the  towns  in  the 
Spessart  region  and  along  the  Rhoen,  the  box  receipts  growing 
smaller  and  smaller  all  the  while.  Dormaul  had  not  been  seen 
since  the  previous  autumn;  the  salaries  had  not  been  paid  for  some 
time.  Wurzelmann  prophesied  a  speedy  and  fatal  end  of  the 
enterprise. 

An  engagement  of  unusual  length  had  been  planned  for  the 
town  of  Ochsenfurt.  The  company  placed  its  last  hopes  on  the 
series,  although  it  was  already  June  and  very  warm.  The  thick, 
muggy  air  of  the  gloomy  hall  in  which  they  were  to  play  left 
even  the  enthusiasts  without  much  desire  to  brighten  up  the 
monotony  of  provincial  life  by  the  enjoyment  of  grand  opera. 

They  drew  smaller  houses  from  day  to  day.  Finally  there  was 
no  more  money  in  the  till;  they  did  not  even  have  enough  to  move 
to  the  next  town.  To  make  matters  worse,  the  tenor  was  taken 
down  with  typhus,  and  the  other  singers  refused  to  sing  until  they 
had  been  paid.  Daniel  wrote  to  Dormaul,  but  received  no  reply. 
Wurzelmann,  instead  of  helping,  fanned  the  easily  inflamed  minds 
of  the  company  into  a  fire  of  noise,  malevolence,  and  hostility. 
They  demanded  that  Daniel  give  them  what  was  due  them, 
besieged  him  in  his  hotel,  and  finally  brought  matters  to  such  a 
pitch  that  the  whole  town  was  busied  with  their  difficulties. 


i42  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

One  afternoon,  a  stately  gentleman  between  fifty-five  and  fifty- 
six  years  old  entered  Daniel's  room,  and  introduced  himself  as 
Sylvester  von  Erfft,  the  owner  of  an  estate. 

His  mission  was  as  follows:  Every  year,  at  this  season,  the 
Chancellor  of  the  German  Empire  was  taking  the  cure  at  the 
nearby  Kissingen  Baths.  Herr  von  Erfft  had  made  his  acquaint- 
ance, and  the  Prince,  an  enthusiastic  landowner,  had  expressed 
the  desire  to  visit  Herr  von  Erfft's  estate,  the  management  of 
which  was  widely  known  as  excellent  in  every  way.  In  order  to 
celebrate  the  coming  of  the  distinguished  guest  with  befitting 
dignity,  it  had  been  decided  not  to  have  any  tawdry  fireworks  or 
cheap  shouting,  but  to  give  a  special  performance  of  the  "Marriage 
of  Figaro"  in  a  rococo  pavilion  that  belonged  to  the  Erfft  estate. 

"This  idea  comes  from  my  wife,"  said  Herr  von  Erfft.  "Some 
ladies  and  gentlemen  of  noble  birth  who  belong  to  our  circle 
will  sing  the  various  parts,  and  my  daughter  Sylvia,  who  studied 
for  two  years  in  Milan  with  Gallifati,  will  take  the  part  of  the 
page.  The  only  thing  we  lack  is  a  trained  orchestra.  For  this 
reason  I  have  come  to  you,  Herr  Kapellmeister,  to  see  if  you  could 
not  bring  your  orchestra  over  and  play  for  us." 

Daniel,  though  pleased  with  the  kindly  disposition  of  Herr  von 
Erfft,  could  not  make  him  any  definite  promise,  for  he  felt  bound 
to  the  helpless,  if  not  hopeless,  opera  company  now  in  his  care. 
Herr  von  Erfft  inquired  more  closely  into  the  grounds  of  his  doubt 
as  to  his  ability  to  have  his  orchestra  undertake  the  special  engage- 
ment, and  then  asked  him  whether  he  would  accept  his  help. 
"Gladly,"  replied  Daniel,  "but  such  help  as  you  can  offer  us  will 
hardly  be  of  any  avail.  Our  chief  is  a  hardened  sinner." 

Herr  von  Erfft  went  with  Daniel  to  the  mayor;  a  half-hour 
later  an  official  dispatch  was  on  its  way  to  the  impresario  Dormaul. 
It  was  couched  in  language  that  was  sufficient  to  inspire  any  citizen 
with  respect,  referred  to  the  desperate  plight  in  which  the  com- 
pany then  found  itself,  and  demanded  in  a  quite  imperious  tone 
that  something  be  done  at  once. 

Dormaul  was  frightened;  he  sent  the  necessary  money  by  return 
wire.  In  another  telegram  to  Wurzelmann  he  declared  the  com- 
pany dissolved;  most  of  the  contracts  had  expired,  and  those  mem- 
bers of  the  company  who  put  in  claims  were  satisfied  in  one  way 
or  another. 

Daniel  was  free.  Wurzclmann  said  to  him  on  taking  leave: 
"Nothafft,  you  will  never  amount  to  anything.  I  have  been  dis- 
appointed in  you.  You  have  far  too  much  conscience.  You 


IN  MEMORY  OF  A  DREAM  FIGURE        143 

cannot  make  children  out  of  morality,  much  less  music.  The 
swamp  is  quaggy,  the  summit  rocky.  Commit  some  act  of  genuine 
swinishness,  so  that  you  may  put  a  little  ginger  into  your  life." 

Daniel  laid  his  hand  on  his  shoulder,  looked  at  him  with  his 
cold  eyes,  and  said:  "Judas." 

"All  right,  Judas  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,"  said  Wurzelmann. 
"I  was  not  born  to  be  nailed  to  the  cross;  I  am  much  more  for  the 
feasts  with  the  Pharisees." 

He  had  got  a  position  as  critic  on  the  Phoenix,  one  of  the 
best  known  musical  magazines. 

Daniel  found  the  members  of  the  orchestra  only  too  glad  to 
take  the  excursion  over  to  Herr  von  Erfft's.  They  were  put  up 
in  a  hotel;  Daniel  himself  lived  in  the  castle.  The  rehearsals 
were  held  with  zeal  and  seriousness.  Though  the  name  of  the 
Chancellor  was  still  darkened  by  the  clouds  of  political  life,  by  the 
enmity  of  his  opponents,  by  pettiness  and  misunderstanding,  all 
these  young  people  felt  the  power  of  the  great  Immortal,  and 
were  delighted  with  the  idea  of  meaning  something  to  him,  even 
in  the  guise  of  an  imaginary  world  and  for  only  a  fleeting  hour 
or  two.  Agatha  von  Erfft,  the  wife  of  Herr  von  Erfft,  was 
indefatigable  in  preparing  the  costumes,  surmounting  technical 
difficulties,  and  entertaining  her  guests.  The  twenty-four-year-old 
Sylvia  had  inherited  neither  the  strength  of  her  mother  nor  the 
amiability  of  her  father:  she  was  delicate  and  reserved.  Never- 
theless, she  managed  to  put  a  great  deal  of  winsomeness  and  roguish- 
ness  into  the  role  of  the  cherub.  Even  her  parents  were  surprised 
at  the  unexpected  wealth  of  her  natural  ability.  Moreover,  her 
voice  was  velvety  and  well  trained.  Accustomed  as  he  had  been 
for  years  to  the  mediocre  accomplishments  of  sore  throats,  Daniel 
nodded  approval  when  she  sang. 

The  other  members  of  the  improvised  company  he  handled 
with  no  greater  indulgence  than  he  had  shown  the  singers  of  the 
Dormaul  troupe.  They  had  to  put  up  with  his  gruffness  and 
snappishness,  and  to '  do  it  without  a  murmur.  Herr  von  Erfft 
attended  the  rehearsals  regularly,  observing  Daniel  at  all  times 
with  quiet  admiration.  If  Daniel  spoke  to  any  one  with  such  seem- 
ing harshness  that  the  case  was  taken  up  with  Herr  von  Erfft,  the 
latter  said:  "Let  the  man  have  his  way;  he  knows  his  business; 
there  are  not  many  like  him." 

Sylvia  was  the  only  one  he  treated  with  consideration.  As  soon 
as  Herr  von  Erfft  mentioned  her  name,  Daniel  listened;  and  as 
soon  as  he  had  seen  her,  he  knew  that  he  had  seen  her  before.  It 


144  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

was  the  time  he  was  on  his  journey;  he  was  standing  out  at  the 
entrance  to  the  park;  some  one  called  to  her.  It  seemed  strange 
to  him  that  he  should  remember  this.  Now  he  was  with  her,  and 
yet  he  was  just  as  much  of  a  stranger  to  her  as  ever. 

But  the  thing  that  drew  him  to  the  beautiful  girl  had  nothing 
to  do  with  this  chance  incident;  nor  was  there  the  slightest  trace 
of  sensuousness  in  his  feelings.  It  was  all  a  sort  of  dream-like  sym- 
pathy, similar  to  the  quest  of  memory  in  search  of  a  forgotten 
happiness.  It  was  a  vaguer  and  more  plaguing  sensation  than  the 
one  that  bound  him  so  inviolably  to  Gertrude;  it  was  more  sorrow 
than  joy,  more  unrest  than  consciousness. 

This  forgotten  happiness  slumbered  deep  down  in  his  soul ;  it 
had  been  washed  away  by  the  waves  of  life.  It  was  not  Sylvia  her- 
self; it  was  perhaps  a  movement  of  her  hand:  where  had  he  known 
this  same  movement  before?  It  was  the  way  she  tossed  her  head 
back;  it  was  her  proud  look,  the  blue  of  her  eyes — but  where  had 
he  seen  all  this  before? 

Forgotten,  forgotten.  .  .  . 

XII 

Just  as  everything  was  in  full  swing,  just  as  they  had  decorated 
the  buildings  and  arranged  the  Herrenhaus,  the  news  came  of  the 
death  of  King  Ludwig  of  Bavaria.  The  newspapers  bore  a  broad 
black  margin,  and  were  crowded  with  details  concerning  the  tragedy 
at  the  Starnbergersee.  The  entire  country,  including  the  family 
of  Hcrr  von  Erfft,  mourned  the  loss  of  the  art-loving  monarch 
genuinely  and  for  a  long  while. 

Of  an  operatic  performance  there  could  be  no  thought.  The 
Chancellor  cancelled  his  engagement,  and  the  young  men  who 
had  assembled  for  the  rehearsals  went  quietly  home.  Herr  von 
Erfft  gave  Daniel  a  considerable  purse  with  which  he  might  recom- 
pense his  musicians  for  their  trouble,  and,  not  wishing  to  treat 
Daniel  himself  as  though  he  were  an  ordinary  mechanic,  he  invited 
him  to  spend  a  few  more  days  on  his  estate. 

Daniel  did  not  decline;  he  had  not  in  truth  given  one  minute's 
thought  to  where  he  would  go  when  he  left. 

After  he  distributed  the  present  from  Herr  von  Erfft  among 
the  musicians  and  discharged  them,  he  took  a  long  walk  in  the 
woods.  He  ate  a  frugal  meal  in  a  village  restaurant,  and  then 
sauntered  around  until  evening.  When  he  returned,  he  found  his 
hosts  sitting  at  the  table.  He  neglected  to  beg  their  pardon;  Prau 


IN  MEMORY  OF  A  DREAM  FIGURE        145 

Agatha  looked  at  her  husband  and  smiled,  and  told  the  maids  to 
bring  in  something  for  the  Herr  Kapellmeister.  Sylvia  had  a 
book  in  her  hand  and  was  reading. 

Daniel  was  a  trifle  ill  at  ease;  he  merely  took  a  bite  here  and 
there.  When  Frau  von  Erfft  left  the  table,  walked  over  to  the 
window,  and  looked  out  into  the  cloudy  sky,  Daniel  got  up,  went 
into  the  adjoining  room,  and  sat  down  at  the  piano. 

He  began  to  play  Schubert's  "Song  to  Sylvia."  Having  finished 
the  impetuous,  heart-felt  song,  he  struck  up  a  variation,  then  a 
second,  a  third,  and  a  fourth.  The  first  was  melancholy,  the  sec- 
ond triumphant,  the  third  meditative,  the  fourth  dreamy.  Each 
was  a  hymn  to  forgotten  joy. 

Herr  von  Erfft  and  Agatha  were  standing  in  the  open  door. 
Sylvia  had  sat  down  close  beside  him  on  a  tabourette;  there  was  a 
pleasing,  faraway  look  in  her  eyes,  riveted  though  they  were  to 
the  floor. 

He  suddenly  stopped,  as  if  to  avoid  both  thanks  and  applause. 
Sylvester  von  Erfft  took  a  seat  opposite  him,  and  asked  him  in  a 
most  kindly  tone  whether  he  had  any  definite  plans  for  the  imme- 
diate future. 

"I  am  going  back  to  Nuremberg  and  get  married,"  said  Daniel. 
"My  fiancee  has  been  waiting  for  me  for  a  long  time." 

Herr  von  Erfft  asked  him  whether  he  was  not  afraid  of  pre- 
mature marriage  bonds.  Daniel  replied  rather  curtly  that  he 
needed  some  one  to  stand  between  him  and  the  world. 

"You  need  some  one  to  act  as  a  sort  of  buffer,"  said  Frau  Agatha 
sarcastically.  Daniel  looked  at  her  angrily. 

"Buffer?  No,  but  a  guardian  angel  if  such  a  creature  can  shield 
me  from  rebuffs,"  said  Daniel,  even  more  brusquely  than  he  had 
spoken  the  first  time. 

"Why  do  you  wish  to  settle  down  and  live  in  Nuremberg,  a  city 
of  such  one-sided  commercial  interests? "  continued  Herr  von  Erfft, 
with  an  almost  solicitous  caution.  "Would  you  not  have  a  much 
better  opportunity  as  a  composer  in  one  of  the  great  cities? " 

"It  is  impossible  to  separate  the  daughter  from  her  father," 
replied  Daniel  with  unusual  candour.  "It  is  impossible.  Nor  is 
it  possible  to  get  the  old  man  to  tear  himself  away  from  his  former 
associations.  He  was  born  and  reared  there.  And  I  do  not  wish 
to  live  alone  any  longer.-  Everybody  needs  a  companion;  even 
the  miner  digs  with  a  better  heart,  when  he  knows  that  up  on  the 
earth  above  his  wife  is  preparing  the  soup.  I  must  say,  however, 
that  I  am  not  so  much  taken  up  with  the  soup  phase  of  married 


146  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

life:  it  is  the  dear  little  soul  that  will  belong  to  me  that  inter- 
ests me." 

He  turned  around,  and  struck  a  minor  chord. 

"And  even  if  everything  were  different,  your  great  cities  would 
not  attract  me,"  he  began  again,  wrinkling  his  face  in  a  most  bizarre 
way.  "What  would  I  get  out  of  them?  Companions?  1  have 
had  enough  of  them.  Music  1  can  study  at  home.  I  can  summon 
the  masters  of  all  ages  to  my  study.  Fame  and  riches  will  find 
their  way  to  me,  if  they  wish  to.  The  dawn  is  missed  only  by 
those  who  are  too  indolent  to  get  up,  and  real  music  is  heard 
by  all  except  the  deaf.  God  attends  to  everything  else;  man  has 
nothing  to  do  with  it." 

He  struck  another  chord,  this  time  in  a  major  key. 

Herr  von  Erfft  and  his  wife  looked  at  him  with  evident  joy  and 
sympathy.  Sylvia  whispered  something  to  her  mother,  who  then 
said  to  Daniel:  "I  have  a  sister  living  in  Nuremberg,  Baroness 
Clotilde  von  Auffenberg.  From  the  time  she  was  a  mere  child 
she  was  an  ardent  lover  of  good  music.  If  I  give  you  a  letter  of 
introduction  to  her,  I  am  quite  sure  she  will  welcome  you  with 
open  arms.  She  is  unfortunately  not  in  the  best  of  health,  and  a 
heavy  fate  is  just  now  hanging  over  her;  but  she  has  a  warm  heart, 
and  her  affections  are  trustworthy." 

Daniel  looked  down  at  the  floor.  He  thought  of  Gertrude  and 
his  future  life  with  her,  and  murmured  a  few  words  of  gratitude. 
Frau  von  Erfft  went  at  once  to  her  desk,  and  wrote  a  detailed 
letter  to  her  sister.  When  she  had  finished  it,  she  gave  it  to 
Daniel  with  a  good-natured  smile. 

The  next  morning  he  left  the  castle  with  the  feeling  of  regret 
that  one  experiences  on  leaving  the  dwelling  place  of  peace  and 
separating  from  noble  friends. 


The  streets  of  Nuremberg  were  hung  with  black  banners.  It  was 
raining.  Daniel  took  a  cheap  room  in  The  Bear. 

It  had  already  grown  dark  when  he  started  to  Jordan's.  He 
met  Benno  at  the  front  door.  He  did  not  recognise  the  foppishly- 
dressed  young  man,  and  was  on  the  point  of  passing  by  without 
speaking  to  him;  but  Benno  stopped,  and  laughed  out  loud. 

"Whew,  the  Herr  Kapellmeister!"  he  cried,  and  his  pale  face, 
already  showing  the  signs  of  dissipation,  took  on  a  scornful  expres- 
sion. "Be  careful,  my  friend,  or  Gertrude  will  swoon." 


IN  MEMORY  OF  A  DREAM  FIGURE        147 

Daniel  asked  if  they  were  all  well.  Benno  replied  that  there 
was  no  lack  of  good  health,  though  some  of  the  family  were  a 
little  short  of  change.  Then  he  laughed  again.  He  spoke  of  his 
father,  said  the  old  gentleman  was  not  getting  along  very  well, 
that  he  was  having  quite  a  little  trouble  to  get  anything  to  do,  but 
then  what  could  be  expected  with  a  man  of  his  age,  and  the  com- 
petition and  the  hard  times!  Daniel  asked  if  Eleanore  was  at 
home.  No,  she  was  not  at  home:  she  had  gone  on  a  visit  with 
Frau  Rubsam  over  to  Pommersfelden,  and  planned  to  stay  there 
for  a  few  weeks.  "Well,  I'll  have  to  be  hurrying  along,"  said 
Benno,  "my  fraternity  brothers  are  waiting  for  me." 

"Good  gracious!     Do  you  have  fraternity  brothers  too?" 

"Of  course!  They  are  the  spice  of  my  life!  We  have  a  holi- 
day to-day:  The  King's  funeral.  Well,  God  bless  you,  Herr 
Kapellmeister,  I  must  be  going." 

Daniel  went  up  and  rang  the  bell;  Gertrude  came  to  the  door, 
It  was  dark;  each  could  see  only  the  outline  of  the  other. 

"Oh,  it's  you,  Daniel!"  she  whispered,  happy  as  happy  could  be. 
She  came  up  to  him,  and  laid  her  face  on  his  shoulder. 

Daniel  was  surprised  at  the  regularity  of  his  pulse.  Yesterday 
the  mere  thought  of  this  meeting  took  his  breath.  Now  he  held 
Gertrude  in  his  arms,  and  was  amazed  to  find  that  he  was  perfectly 
calm  and  composed. 

In  the  room  he  led  her  over  to  the  lamp,  and  looked  at  her  for  a 
long  while,  fixedly  and  seriously.  She  grew  pale  at  the  sight  of 
him:  he  was  so  strange  and  so  terrible. 

Then  he  took  her  by  the  hand,  led  her  over  to  the  sofa,  sat 
down  beside  her,  and  told  her  of  his  plans.  Her  wishes  and  his 
tallied  exactly.  He  wanted  to  get  married  within  four  weeks. 
Very  well ;  she  would  get  married. 

He  found  her  the  same  unqualifiedly  submissive  girl.  In  her 
eyes  there  was  an  expression  of  fatal  docility;  it  terrified  him. 
There  was  no  cowardly  doubt  in  her  soul;  her  cool  hand  lay  in 
his  and  did  not  twitch.  With  her  hand  her  whole  soul,  her  whole 
life,  lay  in  his  hand.  He  wanted  to  raise  some  doubt  in  her 
mind:  he  spoke  in  a  down-hearted  tone  of  his  future  prospects;  he 
said  that  there  was  very  little  hope  of  his  ever  winning  recognition 
from  the  world  for  his  compositions. 

"What  is  the  good  of  recognition?"  she  asked.  "They  can  take 
nothing  from  you,  and  what  they  give  you  is  clear  gain." 

He  became  silent.  The  feeling  of  her  worth  to  him  swept 
like  a  fiery  meteor  through  the  heaven  of  his  existence. 


i48  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

The  statement  that  they  were  going  to  remain  in  Nuremberg 
made  her  happy,  particularly  because  of  her  father.  She  said 
there  was  a  small  apartment  for  rent  on  ^gydius  Place,  three 
rooms,  a  very  quiet  neighbourhood.  They  went  over  to  the  win- 
dow; Gertrude  showed  him  the  house.  It  was  close  to  the  church, 
right  where  the  Place  makes  a  turn. 

Jordan  came  in,  and  welcomed  Daniel  with  a  long  handshake. 
His  hair  had  become  greyer,  he  walked  with  more  of  a  stoop,  and 
his  clothes  showed  traces  of  neglect. 

When  he  heard  what  Daniel  and  Gertrude  were  planning  to 
do,  he  shook  his  head:  "It  is  a  bad  year,  children.  Why  are  you 
in  such  a  hurry?  Both  of  you  are  still  young." 

"If  we  were  older,  we  would  have  less  courage,"  replied  Daniel. 

Jordan  took  a  seat,  and  buried  his  face  in  his  hands.  In  course 
of  time  he  looked  up,  and  said  that  three  years  ago  he  had  only 
eight  thousand  marks  in  the  bank;  that  hard  times  had  forced 
him  to  draw  on  this  sum  to  keep  the  house  going;  and  that  to-day 
there  was  hardly  a  third  of  it  left.  Two  thousand  marks  was  all 
he  could  give  Gertrude  as  a  dowry;  with  that  they  would  have  to 
be  satisfied,  and  get  along  as  well  as  they  could. 

"We  don't  need  'any  more,"  said  Daniel;  "as  a  matter  of  fact 
I  did  not  expect  that  much.  Now  I  haven't  a  care  in  the  world; 
I  am  ready  for  anything." 

A  bat  flew  in  at  the  open  window,  and  then  quietly  flew  out 
again.  It  had  stopped  raining.  You  could  still  hear  the  water 
trickling  and  splashing  down  the  leaders  and  in  the  pipes.  There 
was  something  heavy,  portentous,  in  the  air  of  this  June  evening. 

XIV 

At  first  Daniel  had  received  small  bits  of  news  from  England 
about  Benda,  but  for  a  year  and  a  half  he  had  not  heard  a  word. 
When  Eleanore  returned  from  Pommersfelden  in  July,  she  told 
him  that  she  had  received  a  letter  from  Benda  in  April,  and  that 
she  had  sent  him  this  letter  when  he  was  at  Naumburg.  Daniel, 
however,  had  never  received  it,  and  the  investigations  which  he 
made  proved  fruitless. 

Benda's  mother  was  not  in  the  city;  she  was  living  with  relatives 
in  Worms,  but  had  kept  her  apartment  at  Herr  Carovius's. 

Frau  von  Auffcnberg  was  at  Bad  Ems,  and  did  not  plan  to 
return  until  September.  Daniel  looked  up  old  friends,  and 
rebound  the  ties  of  former  days.  He  also  succeeded  in  getting  a 


IN  MEMORY  OF  A  DREAM  FIGURE        149 

number  of  students  to  tutor,  an  occupation  that  netted  him  a  little 
spending  money. 

He  had  to  attend  to  a  great  deal  of  business  for  which  he  was 
quite  unfit.  He  had  imagined  that  he  could  get  married  just  as 
he  might  go  to  a  shop  and  buy  something:  he  would  not  make  any 
noise,  nor  would  it  take  much  time.  He  had  a  hundred  moods, 
a  hundred  objections,  a  hundred  grimaces.  The  apartment  on 
^Egydius  Place  was  already  rented.  It  embittered  him  to  think 
that  in  order  to  live  with  a  person  you  loved,  you  had  to  have 
tables,  beds,  chairs,  cupboards,  lamps,  glasses,  plates,  garbage  cans, 
water  pails,  window  cushions,  and  a  thousand  and  one  other  foolish 
objects. 

There  was  a  great  deal  of  talk  in  the  city  about  the  marriage. 
The  people  said  they  did  not  know  what  Jordan  could  be  thinking 
of.  They  were  convinced  that  he  was  in  desperate  financial  straits 
if  he  would  marry  his  daughter  to  an  impecunious  musician. 

Daniel  found  everything  hard:  every  day  was  his  Day  of  Judg- 
ment. A  melody  was  gnawing  at  his  heart,  trying  to  take  on  a 
pure  and  finished  form.  Freedom  sounded  in  his  ears  with  voices 
from  above;  his  quiet  fiancee  begged  for  comradeship.  The  task 
to  which  he  had  dedicated  himself  demanded  loneliness;  then  his 
blood  carried  him  along  and  away,  and  he  became  like  wax, 
but  wild. 

He  would  rush  to  Jordan's  house,  enter  the  living  room,  his  hair 
all  dishevelled,  sit  down  where  the  two  sisters  were  working  on 
Gertrude's  trousseau,  and  never  utter  a  syllable  until  Gertrude 
would  come  up  to  him  and  lay  her  hand  on  his  forehead.  He 
thrust  her  back,  but  she  smiled  gently.  At  times,  though  none  too 
frequently,  he  would  take  her  Ly  the  arms  and  pull  her  down  to 
him.  When  he  did  this,  Eleanore  would  smile  with  marked 
demureness,  as  if  it  were  not  right  for  her  to  see  two  people  in 
love. 

There  was  a  second-hand  baby  grand  piano  in  Jordan's  living 
room.  Daniel  played  on  it  in  the  evening,  and  the  sisters  listened. 
Gertrude  was  like  a  woman  wrapt  in  peaceful  slumber,  her  every 
wish  having  been  fulfilled,  with  kindly  spirits  watching  over  her. 
Eleanore,  however,  was  wide  awake;  she  was  awake  and  meditating. 

xv 

The  day  of  the  wedding  arrived.  At  half  past  nine  in  the 
morning,  Daniel  appeared  in  Jordan's  house.  He  wore  an  after- 


i5o  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

noon  suit  and  a  high  hat!  He  was  vexed,  and  villanous  to  behold, 
a  picture  of  misery. 

Benno,  the  man  of  the  world,  was  forced  to  leave  the  room. 
No  sooner  was  he  outside  than  he  laughed  so  heartily  that  he  fell 
into  a  clothes  basket.  He  did  not  approve  of  this  marriage;  he 
was  ashamed  to  tell  his  friends  about  it. 

Gertrude  wore  a  plain  street  dress  and  a  little  virgin  bonnet, 
then  prescribed  by  fashion.  She  sat  by  the  table,  and  gazed  into 
space  with  wide-opened  eyes. 

Eleanore  came  into  the  room  with  a  wreath  of  myrtle.  "You 
must  put  this  on,  Gertrude,"  she  said,  "just  to  please  us;  just  to 
make  us  feel  that  you  are  a  real  bride.  Otherwise  you  look  too 
sober,  too  much  as  though  you  two  were  going  to  the  recorder's 
office  on  profane  business." 

"Where  did  you  get  that  wreath?"  asked  Jordan. 

"I  found  it  in  an  old  chest;  it  is  mother's  bridal  wreath." 

"Really?  Mother's  bridal  wreath?"  murmured  Jordan,  as  he 
looked  at  the  faded  myrtle. 

"Put  it  on,  Gertrude,"  Eleanore  again  requested,  but  Gertrude 
looked  first  at  Daniel,  and  then  laid  it  to  one  side. 

Eleanore  went  up  to  the  mirror,  and  put  it  on  her  own  head. 

"Don't  do  that,  child,"  said  Jordan  with  a  melancholy  smile. 
"Superstitious  people  say  that  you  will  remain  an  old  maid  forever, 
if  you  wear  the  wreath  of  another." 

"Then  I  will  remain  an  old  maid,  and  gladly  so,"  said  Elea- 
nore. 

She  turned  away  from  the  mirror,  and  looked  at  Daniel  half 
unconscious  of  what  she  was  doing.  The  blond  of  her  eyelashes 
had  turned  almost  grey,  the  red  of  her  lips  had  been  dotted  with 
little  spots  from  her  smiling,  and  her  neck  was  like  something 
liquid  and  disembodied. 

Daniel  saw  all  this.  He  looked  at  the  Undine-like  figure  of 
the  girl.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he  had  not  seen  her  since  the  day 
of  his  return,  that  he  had  not  noticed  that  she  had  become  more 
mature,  more  beautiful,  and  more  lovely.  All  of  a  sudden  he  felt 
as  if  he  were  going  to  swoon.  It  went  through  him  like  a  flash: 
Here,  here  was  what  he  had  forgotten;  here  was  the  countenance, 
the  eye,  the  figure,  the  movement  that  had  stood  before  him,  and 
he,  fool,  unspeakable  fool,  had  been  struck  by  blindness. 

Gertrude  had  a  fearful  suspicion  of  the  experience  he  was  going 
through.  She  arose,  and  looked  at  Daniel  in  horror.  He  hastened 
up  to  her  as  if  he  were  fleeing,  and  seized  her  hands.  Eleanore, 


IN  MEMORY  OF  A  DREAM  FIGURE        151 

believing  she  had  aroused  Daniel's  displeasure  by  some  word  or 
gesture,  snatched  the  myrtle  wreath  from  her  hair. 

Jordan  had  paid  no  attention  to  these  incidents.  Bringing  at 
last  his  restless  pacing  back  and  forth  to  an  end,  he  took  out  his 
watch,  looked  at  it,  and  said  it  was  time  they  were  going.  Eleanore, 
who  had  displayed  a  most  curious  disposition  the  whole  morning, 
asked  them  to  wait  a  minute.  Before  they  could  find  out  why 
she  wished  them  to  wait,  the  door  bell  rang,  and  she  ran  out. 

She  returned  with  a  radiant  expression  on  her  face;  Marian 
Nothafft  followed  her.  Marian  composed  herself  only  with 
extreme  difficulty.  Her  eyes  roamed  about  over  the  circle  of 
people  before  her,  partly  as  if  she  were  frightened,  partly  as  if 
she  were  looking  for  some  one. 

Mother  and  son  stood  face  to  face  in  absolute  silence.  That 
was  the  work  of  Eleanore. 

Marian  said  she  was  living  with  her  sister  Theresa;  that  she 
had  arrived  the  day  before;  and  that  she  wished  to  return  this 
evening. 

"I  am  glad,  Mother,  that  you  could  come,"  said  Daniel  with  a 
stifled  voice. 

Marian  laid  her  hand  on  his  head;  she  then  went  up  to  Gertrude, 
and  did  the  same. 

After  the  wedding,  Jordan  gave  a  luncheon  for  his  children. 
In  the  afternoon  they  all  started  off  in  two  hired  coaches.  Daniel 
had  never  seen  his  mother  so  cheerful;  but  it  was  useless  to  ask 
her  to  prolong  her  visit.  While  this  was  being  discussed,  she  and 
Eleanore  exchanged  knowing  glances. 

As  evening  drew  on,  Daniel  and  Gertrude  betook  themselves  to 
their  home. 


XVI 

It  is  night.  The  antiquated  old  square  is  deserted.  The  bell 
in  the  church  tower  has  struck  eleven;  the  lights  in  the  windows 
die  out,  slowly,  one  by  one. 

The  figure  of  a  woman  is  seen  coming  up  the  alley.  She  is 
spying  anxiously  about,  before  her  and  behind  her.  Finally  she 
stops  before  the  little  house  in  which  Daniel  and  Gertrude  live. 
Is  it  a  living  creature?  Is  it  not  rather  an  uncanny  gnome?  The 
garments  hang  loose  about  the  unshapely  body;  a  crumpled  straw 
hat  covers  the  mad-looking  face;  the  shoulders  are  raised;  the  fists 
are  clenched;  the  eyes  are  glassy. 


152  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

Suddenly  there  is  a  scream.  The  woman  hastens  over  toward 
the  church,  falls  on  her  knees,  and  sinks  her  teeth  with  frenzied 
madness  into  the  wooden  pickets  of  the  fence.  After  some  time 
she  rises,  stares  up  once  more  at  the  windows  with  distorted  lips, 
and  then  moves  away  with  slow,  dragging  steps. 

It  was  Philippina  Schimmelweis.  She  kept  going  about  the 
streets  in  this  fashion  until  break  of  day. 


DANIEL  AND  GERTRUDE 


THE  Reichstag  had  voted  to  extend  the  period  during  which  the 
Socialist  law  would  be  in  effect;  the  passing  of  a  new  army  bill 
was  also  to  be  expected.  These  two  measures  had  provoked  tumul- 
tuous discord  in  many  parts  of  the  country. 

The  Social  Democrats  were  planning  a  parade  through  the  main 
streets  of  the  city  in  October,  but  the  police  had  already  forbidden 
their  demonstration.  The  evening  the  edict  was  issued  the  regi- 
ments stood  at  alert  in  the  barracks;  feeling  ran  high  throughout 
the  entire  city.  In  Wohrd  and  Plobenhof  there  had  been  a  number 
of  riots;  in  the  narrow  streets  of  the  central  zone  thousands  of 
workmen  had  stormed  the  Rathaus. 

Every  now  and  then  there  would  come  a  long,  shrill  whistle 
from  the  silent  mass,  followed  at  once  by  the  heavy  rolling  of 
drums  at  the  guard  house. 

Among  those  who  came  down  from  the  direction  of  Koenig 
Street  was  the  workman  •  Wachsmuth.  In  the  vicinity  of  the 
Schimmelweis  shop  he  delivered  an  excited  harangue  against  the 
former  member  of  the  party;  his  words  fell  on  fruitful  soil.  A 
locksmith's  apprentice  who  had  lost  some  money  through  the  Pru- 
dentia  violently  defamed  the  character  of  the  book-seller. 

The  mob  gathered  before  the  lighted  shop  window.  Wachsmuth 
stood  by  the  door,  and  demanded  that  the  traitor  be  suspended 
from  a  lamp  post  before  this  day's  sun  had  set.  A  stone  flew 
through  the  air  over  their  heads,  and  crashed  through  the  window; 
pieces  of  glass  flew  in  all  directions.  Thereupon  a  dozen  fellows 
rushed  into  the  shop,  exclaiming,  "Where  is  the  dirty  dog?  Let 
us  get  at  the  blood-sucker!"  They  wanted  to  teach  him  a  lesson 
he  would  never  forget. 

Before  Theresa  could  open  her  mouth,  scraps  of  books  and 
newspapers  were  flying  in  every  direction,  and  pamphlets  were 
being  trampled  under  foot.  A  forest  of  arms  were  reaching  out 
for  the  shelves,  and  bundles  of  books  were  falling  to  the  floor, 
like  stacks  of  cards  piled  up  by  a  child  and  blown  over  by  the 

153 


i54  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

wind.  Zwanziger  had  taken  refuge  at  the  top  of  the  ladder;  he 
was  howling.  Theresa  stood  by  the  till  looking  like  the  ghost  of 
ages.  Philippina  came  in  through  the  back  door,  and  eyed  what 
was  going  on  without  one  visible  trace  of  surprise  or  discomfort; 
she  merely  smiled.  Just  then  the  policeman's  whistle  blew;  in 
less  time  than  it  takes  to  draw  one  breath,  the  rebellious  insurgents 
were  beating  a  hasty  retreat. 

When  Theresa  regained  consciousness,  the  shop  was  empty;  and 
the  street  in  front  of  the  shop  was  as  deserted  as  it  ordinarily  is 
at  midnight.  After  some  time,  the  chief  of  police  came  up;  he 
was  followed  by  a  crowd  of  curious  people,  who  stood  around  and 
gaped  at  the  scene  of  devastation. 

Jason  Philip,  seeing  what  was  coming,  had  left  the  shop  betimes 
and  hidden  in  his  house.  He  had  even  locked  the  front  door  and 
was  sunk  down  on  a  chair,  his  teeth  clappering  with  vigour  and 
regularity. 

He  returned  at  last  to  the  shop,  and  with  heartrending  dignity 
faced  the  dispenser  of  justice,  who  by  this  time  had  put  in  his 
appearance.  He  said:  "And  this  is  what  I  get  from  people  for 
whom  I  have  sacrificed  my  money  and  my  blood." 

In  giving  his  testimony  as  an  eyewitness,  Zwanziger  displayed 
boastful  hardiness  in  his  narration  of  details.  Philippina  looked 
at  him  with  venomous  contempt  from  under  the  imbecile  locks 
that  hung  down  over  her  forehead,  and  murmured:  "You  disgust- 
ing coward!"  • 

When  Jason  Philip  came  back  from  the  inn,  he  said:  "To  believe 
that  people  can  be  ruled  without  the  knout  is  a  fatal  delusion." 
With  that  he  stepped  into  his  embroidered  slippers — "For  tired 
Father — Consolation."  The  slippers  had  aged,  and  so  had  Jason 
Philip.  His  beard  was  streaked  with  grey. 

Theresa  took  an  invoice  of  the  damage  the  mob  had  done:  she 
felt  that  Jason  Philip  was  a  ruined  man. 

As  he  lay  stretched  out  in  bed,  Jason  Philip  said:  "The  first 
thing  I  want  to  do  is  to  have  a  serious,  heart-to-heart  talk  with 
Baron  Auffenberg.  The  Liberal  Party  is  going  to  take  direct 
action  against  the  impudence  of  the  lower  classes,  or  it  is  going 
to  lose  a  constituent." 

"How  many  quarts  of  beer  did  you  drink? "  asked  Theresa  from 
the  depths  of  the  pillows. 

"Two." 

"You  are  a  liar." 

"Well,    possibly   I    drank   three,"   replied    Jason    Philip   with   a 


DANIEL  AND  GERTRUDE  155 

yawn.     "But  to  accuse  a  man  of  my  standing  of  lying  on  such 
small   grounds   is   an   act  of  perfidy   such   as   only   an   uncultured 
woman  like  yourself  could  be  brought  to  commit." 
Theresa  blew  out  the  candle. 


Baron  Siegmund  von  Auffenberg  had  returned  from  Munich, 
where  he  had  had  an  interview  with  the  Minister. 

He  had  also  seen  a  great  many  other  people  in  the  presence 
of  whom  he  was  condescending,  jovial,  and  witty.  His  amiability 
was  proverbial. 

Now  he  was  sitting  with  a  gloomy  face  by  the  chimney.  Not 
a  one  of  those  many  people  who  had  so  recently  been  charmed  by 
his  conversational  gifts  would  have  recognised  him. 

The  stillness  and  loneliness  pained  him.  An  irresistible  force 
drew  him  to  his  wife.  He  had  not  seen  her  for  seven  weeks, 
though  they  had  lived  in  the  same  house. 

He  was  drawn  to  her,  because  he  wanted  to  know  whether  she 
had  heard  anything  from  that  person  whose  name  he  did  not  like 
to  mention,  from  his  son,  his  enemy,  his  heir.  Not  that  he  wanted 
to  ask  his  wife  any  questions:  he  merely  wished  to  read  her  face. 
Since  no  one  in  the  vicinity  had  dared  say  a  word  to  him  about 
his  son,  he  was  forced  to  rely  on  suppositions  and  the  subtle  cun- 
ning of  his  senses  at  ferreting  out  information  on  this  kind  of 
subjects.  He  did  not  dare  betray  the  curiosity  with  which  he 
waited  for  some  one  to  inform  him  that  his  hated  offspring  had  at 
last  come  to  mortal  grief. 

Six  years  had  elapsed,  and  still  he  could  hear  the  insolent  voice 
in  which  the  monstrous  remarks'  were  made  that  had  torn  him  from 
the  twilight  of  his  self-complacency;  remarks  that  distressed  him 
more  than  any  other  grief  he  may  have  felt  in  the  secrecy  of  his 
bed  chamber  and  which  completely  and  forever  robbed  him  of  all 
the  joys  of  human  existence. 

f  Defechc-toi,  mon  bon  gar^on,"  screeched  the  parrot. 

The  Baron  arose,  and  went  to  his  wife's  room.  She  was  terri- 
fied when  she  saw  him  enter.  She  was  lying  on  a  sofa,  her  head 
propped  up  by  cushions,  a  thick  Indian  blanket  spread  out  over 
her  legs. 

She  had  a  broad,  bloated  face,  thick  lips,  and  unusually  big 
black  eyes,  in  which  there  was  a  sickly  glare.  She  had  been 
regarded  as  a  beauty  in  her  young  days,  though  none  of  this  beauty 


i56  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

was  left,  unless  it  was  the  freshness  of  her  complexion  or  the 
dignified  bearing  of  the  born  lady  of  the  world. 

She  sent  her  maid  out  of  the  room,  and  looked  at  her  husband 
in  silence.  She  studied  the  friendly,  Jesuitic  wrinkles  in  his  face, 
by  virtue  of  which  he  managed  to  conceal  his  real  thoughts.  Her 
anxiety  was  increased. 

"You  have  not  played  the  piano  any  to-day,"  he  began  in  a 
sweet  voice.  "It  makes  the  house  seem  as  though  something  were 
missing.  I  am  told  that  you  have  acquired  perfect  technique,  and 
that  you  have  engaged  a  new  teacher.  Emilia  told  me  this." 

Emilia  was  their  daughter.  She  was  married  to  Count  Urlich, 
captain  of  cavalry. 

In  the  Baroness's  eyes  there  was  an  expression  such  as  is  found 
in  the  eyes  of  some  leashed  beast  when  the  butcher  approaches,  axe 
in  hand.  She  was  tortured  by  the  smoothness  of  the  man  from 
whom  she  had  never  once  in  the  last  quarter  of  a  century  received 
anything  but  brutality  and  scorn,  and  from  whom  she  had  suffered 
the  grossest  of  humiliations — when  no  one  was  listening. 

"What  do  you  want,  Siegmund?"  she  asked,  with  painful  effort. 

The  Baron  stepped  close  up  to  her,  bit  his  lips,  and  looked  at 
her  for  ten  or  twelve  seconds  with  a  fearful  expression  on  his  face. 

She  then  seized  him  by  the  left  arm:  "What  is  the  matter  with 
Eberhard?"  she  cried;  "tell  me,  tell  me  everything!  There  is 
something  wrong." 

The  Baron,  with  a  gesture  of  stinging  aversion,  thrust  her  hands 
from  him,  and  turned  to  go.  There  was  unfathomable  coldness 
in  his  conduct. 

Beside  herself  with  grief,  the  Baroness  made  up  her  mind  to 
tell  him,  for  the  first  time  in  her  life,  of  the  thousand  wrongs 
that  burned  within  her  heart.  And  she  did:  "Oh,  you  monster! 
Why  did  Fate  bring  you  into  my  life?  Where  is  there  another 
woman  in  the  world  whose  lot  has  been  like  mine?  Where  is  the 
woman  who  has  lived  without  joy  or  love  or  esteem  or  freedom  or 
peace,  a  burden  to  others  and  to  herself?  Show  me  another 
woman  who  goes  about  in  silk  and  satin  longing  for  death.  Name 
me  another  woman  who  people  think  is  happy,  because  the  devil, 
who  tortures  her  without  ceasing,  deceives  them  all.  Where  is 
there  another  woman  who  has  been  so  shamelessly  robbed  of  her 
children?  For  is  not  my  daughter  the  captive  and  concubine  of  an 
insan*  tuft-hunter?  Has  not  my  son  been  taken  from  me  through 
the  baseness  that  has  been  practised  against  his  sister,  and  the 
lamentable  spectacle  afforded  him  by  my  own  powerlessness? 


DANIEL  AND  GERTRUDE  157 

Where,  I  ask  high  Heaven,  is  there  another  woman  so  cursed  as  I 
have  been? " 

She  threw  herself  down  on  her  bosom,  and  burrowed  her  face 
into  the  cushion. 

The  Baron  was  surprised  at  the  feverish  eloquence  of  his  wife; 
he  had  accustomed  himself  to  her  mute  resignation,  as  he  might 
have  accustomed  himself  to  the  regular,  monotonous  ticking  of  a 
hall  clock.  He  was  anxious  to  see  what  she  would  do  next,  how 
she  would  develop  her  excitement;  she  was  a  novel  phenomenon 
in  his  eyes:  therefore  he  remained  standing  in  the  door. 

But  as  he  stood  there  in  chilly  expectancy,  his  haggard  face 
casting  off  expressions  of  scorn  and  surprise,  he  suddenly  sensed  a 
feeling  of  weary  disgust  at  himself.  It  was  the  disgust  of  a  man 
whose  wishes  had  always  been  fulfilled,  whose  lusts  had  been  satis- 
fied; of  a  man  who  has  never  known  other  men  except  as  greedy 
and  practical  supplicants;  of  a  man  who  has  always  been  the  lord  of 
his  friends,  the  tyrant  of  his  servants,  and  the  centre  of  all  social 
gatherings;  of  a  man  before  whom  all  others  yielded,  to  whom  all 
others  bowed;  of  a  man  who  had  never  renounced  anything  but 
the  feeling  of  renunciation. 

"I  am  not  unaware,"  he  began  slowly,  just  as  if  he  were  making 
a  campaign  speech  to  his  electors,  "I  am  not  unaware  that  our 
marriage  has  not  been  the  source  of  wholesome  blessings.  To  be 
convinced  of  this,  your  declamation  was  unnecessary.  We  married 
because  the  circumstances  were  favourable.  We  had  cause  to  regret 
the  decision.  Is  it  worth  while  to  investigate  the  cause  now?  I 
am  quite  devoid  of  sentimental  needs.  This  is  true  of  me  to  such 
an  extent  that  any  display  of  sympathy  or  exuberance  or  lack  of 
harshness  in  other  people  fills  me  with  mortal  antipathy.  Unfor- 
tunately, my  political  career  obliged  me  to  assume  a  favourable 
attitude  toward  this  general  tendency  of  the  masses.  I  played  the 
hypocrite  with  complete  consciousness  of  what  I  was  doing,  and 
made  so  much  the  greater  effort  to  conceal  all  feeling  in  my  private 
life." 

"It  is  easy  to  conceal  something  you  do  not  have,"  replied  the 
Baroness  in  a  tone  of  intense  bitterness. 

"Possibly;  but  it  is  a  poor  display  of  tact  for  the  rich  man  to 
irritate  the  poor  man  by  flaunting  his  lavish,  spendthrift  habits  in 
his  face;  and  this  is  precisely  what  you  have  done.  The  emphasis 
you  laid  on  a  certain  possession  of  yours,  the  value  of  which  we  will 
not  dispute,  provoked  my  contempt.  It  gave  you  pleasure  to  cry 
when  you  saw  a  cat  eating  a  sparrow.  A  banal  newspaper  novel 


i58  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

could  rob  you  completely  of  your  spiritual  equanimity.  You  were 
always  thrilled,  always  in  ecstasy,  it  made  not  the  slightest  differ- 
ence whether  the  cause  of  your  ecstasy  was  the  first  spring  violet 
or  a  thunder  storm,  a  burnt  roast,  a  sore  throat,  or  a  poem.  You 
were  always  raving,  and  I  became  tired  of  your  raving.  You  did 
not  seem  to  notice  that  my  distrust  toward  the  expression  of  these 
so-called  feelings  was  transformed  into  coldness,  impatience,  and 
hatred.  And  then  came  the  music.  What  was  at  first  a  diversion 
for  you,  of  which  one  might  approve  or  disapprove,  became  in  time 
the  indemnity  for  an  active  life  and  all  the  defects  of  your  char- 
acter. You  gave  yourself  up  to  music  somewhat  as  a  prostitute 
gives  herself  up  to  her  first  loyal  lover" — the  Baroness  twitched 
as  if  some  one  had  struck  her  across  the  back  with  a  horsewhip — 
"yes,  like  a  prostitute,"  he  repeated,  turning  paler  and  paler,  his 
eyes  glistening.  "Then  it  was  that  your  whole  character  came  to 
light;  one  saw  how  spoiled  you  were,  how  helpless,  how  undis- 
ciplined. You  clung  like  a  worm  to  uncertain  and  undetermined 
conditions.  If  I  have  become  a  devil  in  your  eyes,  it  is  your  music 
that  has  made  me  so.  Now  you  know  it." 

"So  that  is  it,"  whispered  the  Baroness  with  faltering  breath. 
"Did  you  leave  me  anything  but  my  music?  Have  you  not  raged 
like  a  tiger?  But  it  is  not  true,"  she  exclaimed,  "you  are  not  so 
vicious,  otherwise  I  myself  would  be  a  lie  in  the  presence  of  the 
Eternal  Judge,  and  that  I  had  borne  children  by  you  would  be 
contrary  to  nature.  Leave  me,  go  away,  so  that  I  may  believe  that 
it  is  not  true!" 

The  Baron  did  not  move. 

In  indescribable  excitement,  and  as  quickly  as  her  obese  body 
would  permit,  the  Baroness  leaped  to  her  feet:  "I  know  you  better," 
she  said  with  trembling  lips,  "I  have  been  able  to  foreshadow 
what  is  driving  you  about;  I  have  seen  what  makes  you  so  rest- 
less. You  are  not  the  man  you  pretend  to  be;  you  are  not  the 
cold,  heartless  creature  you  seem.  In  your  breast  there  is  a  spot 
where  you  are  vulnerable,  and  there  you  have  been  struck.  You 
are  bleeding,  man!  If  we  all,  I  and  your  daughter  and  your 
brothers  and  your  friends  and  your  cowardly  creatures,  are  as 
indifferent  and  despicable  to  you  as  so  many  flies,  there  is  one  who 
has  been  able  to  wound  you;  this  fact  is  gnawing  at  your  heart. 
And  do  you  know  why  he  was  in  a  position  to  wound  you?  Because 
you  loved  him.  Look  me  in  the  eye,  and  tell  me  that  I  lie.  You 
loved  him — your  son — you  idolised  him.  The  fact  that  he  has 
repudiated  your  love,  that  he  found  it  of  no  value  to  him,  the  love 


DANIEL  AND  GERTRUDE  159 

that  blossomed  on  the  ruined  lives  of  his  mother  and  sister,  this  is 
the  cause  of  your  sorrow.  It  is  written  across  your  brow.  And 
that  you  are  suffering,  and  suffering  for  this  reason,  constitutes 
my  revenge." 

The  Baron  did  not  say  a  word;  his  lower  jaw  wagged  from  left 
to  right  as  though  he  were  chewing  something;  his  face  seemed 
to  have  dried  up;  he  looked  as  though  he  had  suddenly  become 
older  by  years.  The  Baroness,  driven  from  her  reserve,  stood 
before  him  like  an  enraged  sibyl.  He  turned  in  silence,  and  left 
the  room. 

"My  suffering  is  her  revenge,"  he  murmured  on  leaving  the 
room.  Once  alone,  he  stood  for  a  while  perfectly  absent-minded. 
"Am  I  really  suffering?"  he  said  to  himself. 

He  turned  off  a  gas  jet  that  was  burning  above  the  book  case. 
"Yes,  I  am  suffering,"  he  confessed  reluctantly;  "I  am  suffering." 
He  walked  along  the  wall  with  dragging  feet,  and  entered  a  room 
in  which  a  light  was  burning.  He  felt  the  same  satiety  and  dis- 
gust at  himself  that  he  had  experienced  a  few  moments  earlier. 
This  time  it  was  caused  by  the  sight  of  the  hand-carved  furniture, 
the  painted  porcelain,  the  precious  tapestries,  and  the  oil  paintings 
in  their  gold  frames. 

He  longed  for  simpler  things;  he  longed  for  barren  walls,  a 
cot  of  straw,  parsimony,  discipline.  It  was  not  the  first  time  that 
his  exhausted  organism  had  sought  consolation  in  the  thought  of  a 
monastic  life.  This  Protestant,  this  descendent  of  a  long  line  of 
Protestants,  had  long  been  tired  of  Protestantism.  He  regarded 
the  Roman  Church  as  the  more  wholesome  and  merciful. 

But  the  transformation  of  his  religious  views  was  his  own  care- 
fully guarded  secret.  And  secret  it  had  to  remain  until  he,  the 
undisciplined  son  of  his  mother,  could  atone  for  his  past  misdeeds. 
He  decided  to  wait  until  this  atonement  had  been  effected.  Just 
as  a  hypnotist  gains  control  of  his  medium  by  inner  composure, 
so  he  thought  he  could  hasten  the  coming  of  this  event  by  con- 
ceding it  absolute  supremacy  over  his  mind. 

in 

When  Eberhard  von  Auffenbcrg  left  the  paternal  home  to  strike 
out  for  himself,  he  was  as  helpless  as  a  child  that  has  lost  the 
hand  of  its  adult  companion  in  a  crowd. 

He  put  the  question  to  himself:  What  am  I  going  to  do?  He 
had  never  worked.  He  had  studied  at  various  universities  as  so 


160  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

many  other  young  men  have  studied,  that  is,  he  had  managed  to 
pass  a  few  examinations  by  the  skin  of  his  teeth. 

He  had  had  so  little  to  do  in  life,  and  was  so  utterly  devoid  of 
ambition,  that  he  looked  upon  a  really  ambitious  individual  as 
being  insane.  Anything  that  was  at  all  practical  was  filled  with 
insurmountable  obstacles.  His  freedom,  in  other  words,  placed 
him  in  a  distressing  state  of  mind  and  body. 

It  would  not  have  been  difficult  for  him  to  find  people  who 
would  have  been  willing  to  advance  him  money  on  his  name.  But 
he  did  not  wish  to  incur  debts  of  which  his  father  might  hear. 
If  he  did,  his  solemn  solution  of  an  unbearable  relation  would 
have  amounted  to  nothing. 

He  could,  of  course,  count  on  his  share  of  the  estate;  and  he 
did  count  on  it,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  to  do  so  was  to 
speculate  on  the  death  of  his  own  father.  He  stood  in  urgent 
need  of  a  confidential  friend;  and  this  friend  he  thought  he  had 
found  in  Herr  Carovius. 

"Ah,  two  people  such  as  you  and  I  will  not  insist  upon  unneces- 
sary formalities,"  said  Herr  Carovius.  "All  that  I  need  is  your 
face,  and  your  signature  to  a  piece  of  paper.  We  will  deduct  ten 
per  cent  at  the  very  outset,  so  that  my  expenses  may  be  covered, 
for  money  is  dear  at  present.  I  will  give  you  real  estate  bonds; 
they  are  selling  to-day  at  eighty-five,  unfortunately.  The  Exchange 
is  a  trifle  spotty,  but  a  little  loss  like  that  won't  mean  anything 
to  you." 

For  the  ten  thousand  marks  that  he  owed,  Eberhard  received 
seven  thousand,  six  hundred  and  fifty,  cash.  In  less  than  a  year 
he  was  again  in  need  of  money,  and  asked  Herr  Carovius  for 
twenty  thousand.  Herr  Carovius  said  he  did  not  have  that  much 
ready  money,  and  that  he  would  have  to  approach  a  lender. 

Eberhard  replied  sulkily  that  he  could  do  about  that  as  he  saw 
fit,  but  he  must  not  mention  his  name  to  a  third  party.  A  few 
days  later  Herr  Carovius  told  a  tale  of  hair-splitting  negotiations: 
there  was  a  middleman  who  demanded  immodest  guarantees,  includ- 
ing certified  notes.  He  swore  that  he  knew  nothing  about  that 
kind  of  business,  and  that  he  had  undertaken  to  supply  the  needed 
loan  only  because  of  his  excessive  affection  for  his  young  friend. 

Eberhard  was  unmoved.  The  eel-like  mobility  of  the  man  with 
the  squeaking  voice  did  not  please  him;  not  at  all;  as  a  matter  of 
fact  he  began  to  dread  him;  and  this  dread  increased  in  intensity 
and  fearfulness  in  proportion  to  the  degree  in  which  he  felt  he  was 
becoming  more  and  more  entangled  in  his  net. 


DANIEL  AND  GERTRUDE  161 

The  twenty  thousand  marks  were  procured  at  an  interest  of 
thirty-five  per  cent.  At  first  Eberhard  refused  to  sign  the  note. 
He  would  not  touch  it  until  Herr  Carovius  had  assured  him  that 
it  was  not  to  be  converted  into  currency,  that  it  could  be  redeemed 
with  new  loans  at  any  time,  and  that  it  would  lie  in  his  strong-box 
as  peacefully  as  the  bones  of  the  Auffenberg  ancestors  rested  in 
their  vaults.  Eberhard,  tired  of  this  flood  of  words,  yielded. 

Every  time  he  signed  his  name  he  had  a  feeling  that  the  danger 
into  which  he  was  walking  was  becoming  greater.  But  he  was  too 
lazy  to  defend  himself;  he  was  too  aristocratic  to  interest  himself 
in  petty  explanations;  and  he  was  simply  not  capable  of  living  on 
a  small  income. 

The  endorsed  notes  were  presented  as  a  matter  of  warning; 
new  loans  settled  them;  new  loans  made  new  notes  necessary; 
these  were  extended;  the  extensions  were  costly;  an  uncanny  indi- 
vidual shielded  in  anonymity  was  taken  into  confidence.  He 
bought  up  mortgages,  paid  for  them  in  diamonds  instead  of  money, 
and  sold  depreciated  stocks.  The  debts  having  reached  a  certain 
height,  Herr  Carovius  demanded  that  Eberhard  have  his  life 
insured.  Eberhard  had  to  do  it;  the  premium  was  very  high.  In 
the  course  of  three  years  Eberhard  had  lost  all  perspective;  he  could 
no  longer  survey  his  obligations.  The  money  he  received  he  spent 
in  the  usual  fashion,  never  bothered  himself  about  the  terms  on 
which  he  had  secured  it,  and  had  no  idea  where  all  this  was  leading 
to  and  where  it  was  going  to  end.  He  turned  in  disgust  from 
Herr  Carovius's  clumsy  approaches,  malicious  gibes,  and  occasional 
threats. 

What  an  insipid  smile  he  had!  How  fatuous,  and  then  again 
how  profound,  his  conversation  could  be!  He  took  upon  himself 
the  impudent  liberty  of  running  in  and  out  at  Eberhard's  whenever 
he  felt  like  it.  He  bored  him  with  his  discussion  of  philosophic 
systems,  or  with  miserable  gossip  about  his  neighbours.  He  watched 
him  day  and  night. 

He  followed  him  on  the  street.  He  would  come  up  to  him 
and  cry  out,  "Herr  Baron,  Herr  Baron!"  and  wave  his  hat.  His 
solicitude  for  Eberhard's  health  resembled  that  of  a  gaoler.  One 
evening  Eberhard  went  to  bed  with  a  fever.  Herr  Carovius  ran 
to  the  physician,  and  then  spent  the  whole  night  by  the  bedside 
of  the  patient,  despite  his  entreaties  to  be  left  alone.  "Would  it 
not  be  well  for  me  to  write  to  your  mother?"  he  asked,  with  much 
show  of  affection  on  the  next  morning  when  he  noticed  that  the 
Cevcr  had  not  fallen.  Eberhard  sprang  from  his  bed  with  an 


162  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

exclamation  of  rage,  and  Herr  Carovius  left  immediately  and 
unceremon  iously. 

Herr  Carovius  loved  to  complain.  He  ran  around  the  table, 
exclaiming  that  he  was  ruined.  He  brought  out  his  cheque  book, 
added  up  the  figures,  and  cried:  "  Two  more  years  of  this  business, 
dear  Baron,  and  I  will  be  ready  for  the  poor  house."  He  de- 
manded security  and  still  more  securities;  he  asked  for  renewed 
promises.  He  submitted  an  account  of  the  total  sum,  and  demanded 
an  endorsement.  But  it  was  impossible  for  any  one  to  make  head 
or  tail  out  of  this  welter  of  interest,  commissions,  indemnities, 
and  usury.  Herr  Carovius  himself  no  longer  knew  precisely  how 
matters  stood;  for  a  consortium  of  subsequent  indorsers  had  been 
formed  behind  his  back,  and  they  were  exploiting  his  zeal  on 
behalf  of  the  young  Baron  for  all  it  was  worth. 

"What  is  this  I  hear  about  you  and  the  women?"  asked  Herr 
Carovius  one  day.  "What  about  a  little  adventure?"  He  had 
noticed  that  the  Baron  had  a  secret;  and  it  enraged  him  to  think 
that  he  could  not  get  at  the  bottom  of  this  amorous  mystery. 

He  made  this  discovery  one  day  as  Eberhard  was  packing  his 
trunk'  "Where  are  you  going  my  dear  friend?"  he  crowed  in 
exclamatory  dismay.  Eberhard  replied  that  he  was  going  to  Switz- 
erland. "To  Switzerland?  What  are  you  going  to  do  there?  I 
am  not  going  to  let  you  go,"  said  Herr  Carovius.  Eberhard  gave 
him  one  cold  stare.  Herr  Carovius  tried  beseeching,  begging, 
pleading.  It  was  in  vain;  Eberhard  left  for  Switzerland.  He 
wanted  to  be  alone;  he  became  tired  of  being  alone,  and  returned; 
he  went  off  again;  he  came  back  again,  and  had  the  conversation 
with  Eleanore  that  robbed  him  of  his  last  hope.  Then  he  went 
to  Munich,  and  took  up  with  the  spiritists. 

Spiritual  and  mental  ennui  left  him  without  a  vestige  of  the 
power  of  resistance.  An  inborn  tendency  to  scepticism  did  not 
prevent  him  from  yielding  to  an  influence  which  originally  was 
farther  removed  from  the  inclinations  of  his  soul  than  the  vulgar 
bustle  of  everyday  life.  Benumbed  as  his  critical  judgment  now 
was,  he  went  prospecting  for  the  fountain  of  life  in  a  zone  where 
dreams  flourish  and  superficial  enchantment  predominates. 

Herr  Carovius  hired  a  spy  who  never  allowed  Eberhard  to  get 
out  of  his  sight.  He  reported  regularly  to  his  employer  on  the 
movements  of  the  unique  scion  of  the  Auffenberg  line.  If  Eber- 
hard needed  money,  he  was  forced  to  go  to  Carovius,  who  would 
stand  on  the  platform  for  an  hour  waiting  for  the  Baron's  train 
to  come  in;  and  once  Eberhard  had  got  out  of  his  carriage,  Herr 


DANIEL  AND  GERTRUDE  163 

Carovius  excited  the  laughter  of  the  railroad  officials  by  his 
affectionate  care  for  his  protege.  Delighted  to  see  him  again,  he 
would  talk  the  sheerest  nonsense,  and  trip  around  about  his  young 
friend  in  groundless  glee. 

It  seemed  after  all  this  that  Herr  Carovius  really  loved  the 
Baron ;  and  he  did. 

He  loved  him  as  a  gambler  loves  his  cards,  or  as  the  fire  loves 
the  coals.  He  idealised  him;  he  dreamt  about  him;  he  liked  to 
breathe  the  air  that  Eberhard  dreamed;  he  saw  a  chosen  being  in 
him;  he  imputed  all  manner  of  heroic  deeds  to  him,  and  was 
immeasurably  pleased  at  his  aristocratic  offishness. 

He  loved  him  with  hatred,  with  the  joy  of  annihilation.  This 
hate-love  became  in  time  the  centre  of  his  thoughts  and  feelings. 
In  it  was  expressed  everything  that  separated  him  from  other  men 
and  at  the  same  time  drew  him  to  them.  It  controlled  him  uncon- 
ditionally, until  a  second,  equally  fearful  and  ridiculous  passion 
became  affiliated  with  it. 

IV 

Daniel  had  hesitated  for  a  long  while  about  making  use  of  the 
letter  of  introduction  from  Frau  von  Erfft.  Gertrude  then  took 
to  begging  him  to  go  to  the  Baroness.  "If  I  go  merely  to  please 
you,  my  action  will  avenge  itself  on  you,"  he  said. 

"If  I  understood  why  you  hesitate,  I  would  not  ask  you,"  she 
replied  in  a  tone  of  evident  discomfort. 

"I  found  so  much  there  in  Erfft,"  said  he,  "so  much  human 
kindness  that  was  new  to  me;  I  dislike  the  idea  of  seeing  some 
ulterior  motive  back  of  it,  or  of  putting  one  there  myself.  Do 
you  understand  now?"  She  nodded. 

"But  must  is  stronger  than  may,"  he  concluded,  and  went. 

The  Baroness  became  quite  interested  in  his  case.  The  position 
of  second  Kapellmeister  at  the  City  Theatre  was  vacant,  and  she 
tried  to  have  Daniel  appointed  to  it.  She  was  promised  that  it 
would  be  given  to  him;  but  the  usual  intrigues  were  spun  behind 
her  back;  and  when  she  urged  that  the  matter  be  settled  imme- 
diately and  in  favour  of  her  candidate,  she  was  fed  on  dissembling 
consolation.  She  was  quite  surprised  to  be  brought  face  to  face 
with  hostile  opposition,  which  seemed  to  spring  from  every  side 
as  if  by  agreement  against  the  young  musician.  Not  a  single  one 
of  his  enemies,  however,  allowed  themselves  to  be  seen,  and  no 
o»e  heard  from  by  correspondence.  It  was  the  first  time  that  she 


164  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

had  come  in  conflict  with  the  world  in  a  business  way;  there  was 
something  touching  in  her  indignation  at  the  display  of  cowardly 
fraud. 

Finally,  after  a  long,  and  for  her  humiliating,  interview  with 
that  chief  of  cosmopolitan  brokers,  Alexander  Dormaul,  Daniel's 
engagement  for  the  coming  spring  was  agreed  upon. 

In  the  meantime  the  Baroness  took  lessons  from  Daniel.  She 
expressed  a  desire  to  familiarise  herself  with  the  standard  piano 
compositions,  and  to  be  given  a  really  practical  introduction  to  their 
meaning  and  the  right  method  of  interpreting  them. 

It  was  long  before  she  became  accustomed  to  his  cold  and 
morose  sternness.  She  had  the  feeling  that  he  was  pulling  her  out 
of  a  nice  warm  bath  into  a  cold,  cutting  draught.  She  longed 
to  return  to  her  twilights,  her  ecstatic  moods,  her  melancholy 
reveries. 

Once  he  explained  to  her  in  a  thoroughly  matter-of-fact  way  the 
movement  of  a  fugue.  She  dared  to  burst  out  with  an  exclama- 
tion of  joy.  He  shut  the  piano  with  a  bang,  and  said:  "Adieu, 
Baroness."  He  did  not  return  until  she  had  written  him  a  letter 
asking  him  to  do  so. 

"Ah,  it  is  lost  effort,  a  waste  of  time,"  he  thought,  though  he 
did  not  fail  to  appreciate  the  Baroness's  human  dignity.  The 
eight  hours  a  month  were  a  complete  torture  to  him.  And  yet  he 
found  that  twenty  marks  an  hour  was  too  much;  he  said  so.  The 
suspicion  that  she  was  giving  him  alms  made  him  exceedingly  dis- 
agreeable. 

A  servant  became  familiar  with  him.  Daniel  took  him  by  the 
collar  and  shook  him  until  he  was  blue  in  the  face.  He  was  as 
wiry  as  a  jaguar,  and  much  to  be  feared  when  angry.  The 
Baroness  had  to  discharge  the  servant. 

Once  the  Baroness  showed  him  an  antique  of  glass  work  made 
of  mountain  crystal  and  beautifully  painted.  As  he  was  looking 
at  it  in  intense  admiration,  he  let  it  fall;  it  broke  into  many  pieces. 
He  was  as  humiliated  as  a  whipped  school  boy;  the  old  Baroness 
had  to  use  her  choicest  powers  of  persuasion  to  calm  him.  He 
then  played  the  whole  of  Schumann's  "Carneval"  for  her,  a  piece 
ot  music  of  which  she  was  passionately  fond. 

Every  forenoon  you  could  see  him  hastening  across  the  bridge. 
He  always  walked  rapidly;  his  coat  tails  flew.  He  always  had 
the  corners  of  his  mouth  drawn  up  and  his  lower  lip  clenched 
between  his  teeth.  He  was  always  looking  at  the  ground;  in  the 
densest  crowds  he  seemed  to  be  alone.  He  bent  the  rim  of  his 


DANIEL  AND  GERTRUDE  165 

hat  down  so  that  it  covered  his  forehead.  His  dangling  arms 
resembled  the  stumpy  wings  of  a  penguin. 

At  times  he  would  stop,  stand  all  alone,  and  listen,  so  to  speak, 
into  space  without  seeing.  When  he  did  this,  street  boys  would 
gather  about  him  and  grin.  Once  upon  a  time  a  little  boy  said  to 
his  mother:  "Tell  me,  mother,  who  is  that  old,  old  manikin  over 
there?" 

This  is  the  picture  we  must  form  of  him  at  this  time  of  his  life, 
just  before  his  years  of  real  storm  and  stress:  he  is  in  a  hurry; 
he  seems  so  aloof,  sullen,  distant,  and  dry;  he  is  whipped  about  the 
narrow  circle  of  his  everyday  life  by  fancy  and  ambition;  he  is 
so  young  and  yet  so  old.  This  is  the  light  in  which  we  must 
see  him. 


The  apartment  of  Daniel  and  Gertrude  had  three  rooms.  Two 
opened  on  the  street,  and  one,  the  bed  room,  faced  a  dark,  gloomy 
court. 

With  very  limited  means,  but  with  diligence  and  pleasure, 
Gertrude  had  done  all  in  her  power  to  make  the  apartment  as 
comfortable  as  possible.  Though  the  ceilings  were  low  and  the 
walls  almost  always  damp,  the  rooms  seemed  after  all  quite  home- 
like and  attractive. 

In  Daniel's  study  the  piano  was  the  chief  object  of  furniture;  it 
dominated  the  space.  Fuchsias  in  the  window  gave  a  pleasing 
frame  to  the  general  picture  of  penury.  His  mother  had  given 
him  the  oil  painting  of  his  father.  From  its  place  above  the 
sofa  the  stern  countenance  of  Gottfried  Nothafft  looked  down 
upon  the  son.  It  seemed  at  times  that  the  face  of  the  father 
turned  toward  the  mask  of  Zingarella  as  if  to  ask  who  and  what  it 
was.  The  mask  hung  on  the  other  side  of  the  room  from  the  oil 
painting;  its  unbroken  smile  was  lost  in  the  shadows. 

Gertrude  had  to  do  all  the  household  work;  they  could  not 
afford  a  servant.  In  the  years  of  Daniel's  absence,  however,  she 
had  learned  to  copy  notes.  Herr  Seelenfromm,  assistant  to  the 
apothecary  Pflaum,  had  taught  her.  He  was  a  cousin  of  Frau 
Riibsam,  and  she  had  become  acquainted  with  him  through  Eleanore. 
In  his  leisure  hours  he  composed  waltzes  and  marches,  and  dedi- 
cated them  to  the  princes  and  princesses  of  the  royal  family.  He 
also  dedicated  one  to  Gertrude.  It  was  entitled  "Feenzaubcr," 
and  was  a  gavotte. 


166  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

When  Daniel  learned  of  her  accomplishment,  he  was  so  aston- 
ished that  he  threw  his  hands  above  his  head.  The  rare  being 
looked  up  at  him  intoxicated  with  joy.  "I  will  help  you,"  she 
said,  and  copied  his  notes  for  him. 

When  they  walked  along  the  streets  she  would  close  her  eyes  at 
times.  A  melody  floated  by  her  which  she  had  never  before  been 
able  to  understand.  As  she  bought  her  vegetables  and  tried  to  drive 
a  bargain  with  the  old  market  woman,  her  soul  was  full  of  song. 

Certain  tones  and  combinations  of  tones  took  on  definite  shapes 
in  her  mind.  The  bass  B  of  the  fourth  octave  appeared  to  her 
as  a  heavily  veiled  woman ;  the  middle  E  resembled  a  young  man 
who  was  stretching  his  arms.  In  chords,  harmonies,  and  harmonic 
transformations  these  figures  were  set  in  motion,  the  motion 
depending  on  the  character  of  the  composition:  a  procession  of 
mourning  figures  between  clouds  and  stars;  wild  animals  spurred 
on  by  the  huntsmen  who  were  riding  them;  maidens  throwing 
flowers  from  the  windows  of  a  palace;  men  and  women  plunging 
into  an  abyss  in  one  mass  of  despairing  humanity;  weeping  men 
and  laughing  women,  wrestlers  and  ball  players,  dancing  couples 
and  grape  pickers.  The  pause  appealed  to  her  as  a  man  who  climbs 
naked  from  a  deep  subterranean  shaft,  carrying  a  burning  torch  in 
his  hand;  the  trill  seemed  like  a  bird  that  anxiously  flutters  about 
its  nest. 

All  of  Daniel's  compositions  came  close  to  her  heart;  all  his 
pictures  were  highly  coloured;  his  figures  seemed  to  be  full  of 
blood.  If  they  remained  dead  and  distant,  her  sympathy  vanished; 
her  face  became  tired  and  empty.  Without  having  spoken  a  word 
with  each  other,  Daniel  would  know  that  he  was  on  the  wrong 
track.  But  all  this  bound  him  to  the  young  woman  with  hoops  of 
steel;  he  came  to  regard  her  as  the  creature  given  him  of  God  to 
act  as  his  living  conscience  and  infallible  if  mute  judge. 

He  hated  her  when  her  feelings  remained  unmoved.  If  he  at 
last  came  to  see,  after  much  introspection,  that  she  was  right,  then 
he  would  have  liked  to  fall  down  and  worship  the  unknown  power 
that  was  so  inexorable  in  pointing  him  the  way. 

Spindler  had  a  beautiful  harp  which  he  had  bequeathed  to 
Daniel  in  his  will.  It  had  remained  in  Ansbach  in  the  possession 
of  the  old  lady  who  kept  house  for  him.  Daniel  had  forgotten  all 
about  the  harp.  After  his  marriage  he  had  it  sent  to  him. 

He  kept  it  in  the  living  room;  Gertrude  was  fond  of  looking 
at  it.  It  enticed  her.  One  day  she  sat  down  and  tried  to  draw 
tones  from  its  strings.  She  touched  the  strings  very  gently,  and 


DANIEL  AND  GERTRUDE  167 

was  charmed  with  the  melody  that  came  from  them.  Gradually 
she  learned  the  secret;  she  discovered  the  law.  An  innate  talent 
made  the  instrument  submissive  to  her;  she  was  able  to  express  on 
it  all  the  longings  and  emotions  she  had  experienced  in  her  dark 
and  lonely  hours. 

She  generally  played  very  softly;  she  never  tried  intricate 
melodies,  for  the  harp  was  adapted  to  the  expression  of  simple, 
dream-like  harmonies.  The  tones  were  wafted  out  into  the  hall 
and  up  the  stairs;  they  greeted  Daniel  as  he  entered  the  old  house. 

When  he  came  into  the  room,  Gertrude  was  sitting  in  a  corner 
by  the  stove,  the  harp  between  her  knees.  She  smiled  mysteriously 
to  herself;  her  hands,  like  strange  beings  loosed  from  her  body, 
sought  chords  and  melodies  that  were  his,  and  which  she  was  trying 
to  translate  to  her  own  world  of  dreams. 


VI 

Her  command  cf  language  was  more  defective  now  than  ever. 
She  was  seized  with  painful  astonishment  when  she  noticed  that 
in  matters  of  daily  intercourse  Daniel's  mind  was  not  able  to 
penetrate  the  veil  behind  which  she  lived. 

He  said  to  himself:  she  is  too  heavy.  He  was  dumbfounded  at 
her  conduct,  and  displeased  with  it. 

"The  gloomy  house  oppresses  you,"  he  said  in  a  tone  of  ill 
humour,  when  she  smiled  in  her  helpless  way. 

"Let  us  run  a  race,"  he  said  to  her  one  day  as  they  were  taking 
a  walk  through  the  country.  An  old  tree  in  the  distance  that  had 
been  struck  by  lightning  was  to  be  their  objective. 

They  ran  as  fast  as  their  feet  could  carry  them.  At  a  distance 
of  about  ten  metres  from  the  tree,  Gertrude  collapsed.  He  carried 
her  over  to  the  meadow. 

"How  heavy  you  are,"  he  said. 

"Too  heavy  for  you?"  she  asked  with  wide-opened  eyes.  He 
shrugged  his  shoulders. 

Then  she  slipped  out  of  his  embrace,  sprang  to  her  feet,  and 
ran  with  remarkable  swiftness  a  distance  that  was  twice  as  long 
as  the  one  he  had  staked  off;  she  did  not  fall;  she  did  not  want 
to  fall;  she  dared  not. 

Breathing  heavily  and  pale  as  a  corpse,  she  waited  until  he  came 
up.  But  he  had  no  tenderness  for  her  now;  he  merely  scolded. 
Ann  in  arm  they  walked  on.  Gertrude  felt  for  his  hand;  he 
gave  it  to  her,  and  she  pressed  it  to  her  bosom. 


168  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

Daniel  was  terrified  as  he  looked  into  her  face,  and  saw  her 
thoughts  written  there  as  if  in  "letters  of  fire:  We  belong  to  each 
other  for  time  and  eternity. 

That  was  her  confession  of  faith. 


She  lay  wide  awake  until  late  at  night.  She  heard  him  go  into 
the  kitchen  and  get  a  drink  of  water  and  then  return  to  his  room. 
He  had  forbidden  her  to  come  to  the  door  and  ask  whether  he  was 
not  going  to  bed  soon:  she  was  not  to  do  this,  it  made  no  difference 
how  late  it  was. 

Then  he  lay  beside  her,  his  head  on  his  arm,  and  looked  at  her 
with  eyes  that  had  lost  their  earthly,  temporal  glow.  Man,  where 
are  your  eyes  anyway,  she  would  have  liked  to  exclaim.  And  yet 
she  knew  where  they  were;  she  knew,  too,  that  it  is  dangerous  to 
disturb  a  somnambulist  by  calling  to  him. 

One  night  he  had  found  it  impossible  to  do  his  work.  He  sat 
down  on  the  edge  of  the  bed  and  stared  into  the  light  of  the 
lamp  for  an  hour  or  so,  hating  himself.  Gertrude  saw  how  he 
raged  at  himself;  how  he  really  fed,  nourished  his  lack  of  con- 
fidence in  himself.  But  she  could  not  say  anything. 

A  publisher  had  returned  one  of  his  manuscripts  with  a  cour- 
teous but  depressing  conventional  rejection  slip.  Daniel  spoke 
disparagingly  of  his  talents;  he  had  lost  hope  in  his  future;  he 
was  bitter  at  the  world;  he  felt  that  he  was  condemned  to  a  life 
of  unceasing  obscurity. 

The  only  thing  she  could  do  was  look  at  him;  merely  look 
at  him. 

He  became  tired  of  having  her  look  at  him;  a  fresh,  vigorous 
remark  would  have  served  his  purpose  much  better,  he  thought. 

She  measured  her  work  and  his  not  in  terms  of  reward;  she  did 
not  seek  for  connection  of  any  kind  between  privation  and  hope; 
nor  did  she  measure  Daniel's  love  in  terms  of  tender  expressions 
and  embraces.  She  waited  for  him  with  much  patience.  In  time 
her  patience  irritated  him.  "A  little  bit  more  activity  and  insistence 
would  not  hurt  you,"  he  said  one  day,  and  thrust  her  timid, 
beseeching  hands  from  him. 

He  saw  himself  cared  for:  He  had  a  home,  a  person  who  pre- 
pared his  meals,  washed  his  clothes,  and  faithfully  attended  to  his 
other  household  needs.  He  should  have  been  grateful.  He  was, 
too,  but  he  could  not  show  it.  He  was  grateful  when  he  was 


DANIEL  AND  GERTRUDE  169 

alone,  but  in  Gertrude's  presence  his  gratitude  turned  to  defiance. 
If  he  was  away  from  home,  he  thought  with  pleasure  of  his 
return;  he  pictured  Gertrude's  joy  at  seeing  him  again.  But  when 
he  was  with  her,  he  indulged  in  silent  criticism,  and  wanted  to  have 
everything  about  her  different. 

The  judge's  wife  on  the  first  floor  complained  that  Gertrude 
did  not  speak  to  her.  "Be  kind  to  your  neighbours,"  he  remarked 
with  the  air  of  a  professional  scold.  The  next  Sunday  they  took 
a  walk,  on  which  they  met  the  judge's  wife.  Gertrude  spoke  to 
her:  "Well,  you  don't  need  to  fall  on  her  neck,"  he  mumbled. 
She  thought  for  a  long  while  of  how  she  might  speak  to  people 
without  offending  them  and  without  annoying  Daniel.  She  was 
embarrassed;  she  was  afraid  of  Daniel's  criticism. 

On  such  days  she  would  put  too  much  salt  in  the  soup,  every- 
thing went  wrong,  and  in  her  diligent  attempt  to  be  punctual  she 
lost  much  time.  She  was  fearfully  worried  when  he  got  up  from 
the  table  and  went  to  his  room  without  saying  a  word.  She 
would  sit  perfectly  still  and  listen;  she  was  frightened  when  he 
went  to  the  piano  to  try  a  motif.  When  he  again  entered  her 
room,  she  looked  into  his  face  with  the  tenseness  of  a  soul  in  utter 
anguish.  Then  it  suddenly  came  about  that  he  would  sit  down  by 
her  side  and  caress  her.  He  told  her  all  about  his  life,  his  home, 
his  father,  his  mother.  If  she  could  only  have  heard  each  of  his 
words  twice!  If  she  could  only  have  drunk  in  the  expression  in 
his  eyes!  They  were  filled  with  peace;  his  nervous  hands  lay  in 
quiet  on  his  knees  when  he  spoke  to  her  in  this  way  on  these  sub- 
jects. His  twitching,  angular  face,  weatherbeaten  by  the  storms 
of  life,  took  on  an  expression  of  sorrow  that  was  most  becom- 
ing to  it. 

When  she  had  a  headache  or  was  tired,  he  expressed  his  anxiety 
for  her  in  touching  tones.  He  would  go  about  the  house  on 
tiptoes,  and  close  the  doors  with  infinite  care.  If  a  dog  barked 
on  the  street,  he  rushed  to  the  window  and  looked  out,  enraged  at 
the  beast.  When  she  retired,  he  would  help  her  undress,  and 
bring  her  whatever  she  needed. 

It  was  also  strange  that  he  disliked  the  idea  of  leaving  her  alone. 
There  was  something  childlike  in  his  restlessness  when  he  was  at 
home  and  she  was  out.  He  pictured  her  surrounded  by  grievous 
dangers;  he  would  have  liked  to  lock  her  up  and  hold  her  a  cap- 
tive, so  as  to  be  sure  that  she  was  quite  safe.  This  made  her  all 
the  weaker  and  more  dependent  upon  him,  while  he  was  like  a 
man  who  presses  what  he  has  to  his  heart,  plagued  with  the  thought 


i7o  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

that  by  some  mischance  it  might  escape,  and  yet  clings  to  it  also 
lest  he  be  disturbed  by  the  thought  of  another  more  precious  pos- 
session he  loved  long  since  and  lost  a  while. 

Once  he  came  to  Gertrude  while  she  was  playing  the  harp,  threw 
his  arms  about  her,  looked  into  her  face  with  a  wild,  gloomy  expres- 
sion, and  stammered:  "I  love  you,  I  love  you,  I  do."  It  was  the 
first  time  he  had  spoken  these  eternal  words.  She  grew  pale,  first 
from  joy  and  then  from  fear;  for  there  was  more  of  hatred  than 
of  love  in  his  voice. 


VIII 

He  felt  that  association  with  congenial  men  would  help  him  over 
many  a  dark  hour.  But  when  he  set  out  to  look  for  these  men, 
the  city  became  a  desert  and  a  waste  place. 

Herr  Seelenfromm  came  to  his  house  now  and  then.  Daniel 
could  not  endure  the  timid  man  who  admired  him  so  profoundly, 
and  who,  in  the  bottom  of  his  heart,  had  an  equal  amount  of  respect 
for  Gertrude.  The  young  architect  who  had  been  employed  at 
the  St.  Sebaldus  Church  while  it  was  being  renovated,  and  who 
loved  music,  had  won  Daniel's  esteem.  But  he  had  a  repulsive 
habit  of  smacking  his  tongue  when  he  talked.  Daniel  and  he  dis- 
cussed the  habit,  and  parted  the  worst  of  enemies.  His  association 
with  a  certain  Frenchman  by  the  name  of  Riviere  wis  of  longer 
duration.  Riviere  was  spending  some  time  in  the  city,  looking  up 
material  for  a  life  of  Caspar  Hauser.  He  had  made  his  acquaint- 
ance at  the  Baroness  von  Auffenberg's,  and  taken  a  liking  to  him 
because  he  reminded  him  of  Friedrich  Benda. 

M.  Riviere  loved  to  hear  Daniel  improvise  on  the  piano.  He 
knew  so  little  German  that  he  merely  smiled  at  Daniel's  caustic 
remarks;  and  if  he  became  violently  enraged,  M.  Riviere  merely 
stared  at  his  mouth.  He  had  a  wart  on  his  cheek,  and  wore  a 
straw  hat  summer  and  winter.  He  cooked  his  own  meals,  for  it 
was  an  obsession  of  his  that  people  wanted  to  poison  him  because 
he  was  writing  a  life  of  Caspar  Hauser. 

When  Herr  Seelenfromm  and  M.  Riviere  came  in  of  a  Sunday 
evening,  Daniel  would  reach  for  a  volume  of  E.  T.  A.  Hoffmann 
or  Clemens  Brentano,  and  read  from  them  until  he  was  hoarse. 
He  tried  in  this  way  to  find  peace  in  a  strange  world;  for  he  did 
not  wish  to  weep  at  the  sight  of  human  beings  who  seemed  per- 
fectly at  ease. 

Gertrude  looked  at  him,  and  put  this  question  to  herself:  How 


DANIEL  AND  GERTRUDE  171 

is  it  that  a  man  to  whom  music  is  life  and  the  paradise  of  his  heart 
can  allow  himself  to  be  so  enveloped  in  sorrow,  so  beclouded  by 
gloom?  She  understood  the  smarting  pains  in  which  he  composed; 
she  had  a  vague  idea  of  the  labyrinthine  complications  of  his  inner 
fate;  these  she  grasped.  But  her  own  soul  was  filled  with  joyless 
compassion;  she  wished  with  all  her  power  to  plant  greater  faith 
and  more  happiness  in  his  heart. 

She  meditated  on  the  best  means  of  carrying  on  her  spiritual 
campaign.  It  occurred  to  her  that  he  had  had  more  of  both  faith 
and  happiness  at  the  time  he  was  going  with  Eleanore.  She  saw 
Eleanore  now  in  a  quite  different  light.  She  recalled  that  Eleanore 
was  not  merely  her  sister  but  the  creator  of  her  happiness.  Nor 
was  she  unmindful  of  the  fact  that  through  the  transformation 
of  her  being,  love  and  enlightenment  had  arisen  to  take  the  place 
of  her  former  suspicion  and  ignorance. 

She  ascribed  to  Eleanore  all  those  powers  in  which  she  had 
formerly  been  lacking:  general  superiority  and  stimulating  vigour; 
an  ability  to  play  that  lent  charm  to  drudgery  and  made  the  hard 
things  of  life  easy;  brightness  in  conversation  and  delicacy  of 
touch.  In  her  lonely  breedings  she  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
Eleanore  was  the  only  one  who  could  help  her.  She  went  straight- 
way to  her  father's  house  to  find  out  why  Eleanore  so  rarely  came 
to  see  her. 

"I  don't  like  to  come;  Daniel  is  so  unkind  to  me,"  said  Eleanore. 

Gertrude  replied  that  he  was  unkind  to  everybody,  including 
her  herself,  and  that  she  must  not  pay  any  attention  to  this;  for 
she  knew  full  well  that  Daniel  liked  her — and  perhaps  he  himself 
was  offended  because  she  never  called. 

Eleanore  thought  it  all  over,  and  from  then  on  visited  her  sister 
more  frequently.  But  if  it  did  not  look  as  though  Daniel  did 
everything  in  his  power  to  avoid  her,  this  much  was  certain:  he 
never  said  a  word  to  her  more  than  human  decency  required,  and 
was  an  expert  at  finding  reasons  why  he  had  to  leave  the  room 
when  she  was  there.  Eleanore  was  gainfully  conscious  of  this; 
it  hurt  her. 


IX 


One  morning  Gertrude  returned  from  the  market,  carrying  a 
heavy  basket  full  of  things  she  had  bought.  As  she  came  in  the 
front  door  she  heard  Daniel  playing.  She  noticed  at  once  that  he 
was  not  improvising;  that  he  was  playing  a  set  piece,  the  tones 
of  which  were  quite  unfamiliar  to  her. 


172  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

As  she  came  up  the  steps,  the  basket  no  longer  seemed  like  a 
burden.  She  went  quietly  into  the  living  room  and  listened. 
Something  drew  her  closer  and  closer  to  the  piano.  Daniel  had 
not  noticed  that  she  had  entered  the  room  and  sat  down.  He  was 
wholly  lost  in  what  he  was  doing;  he  never  took  his  rapt  and 
wondering  eyes  from  the  music  before  him. 

It  was  his  draft  of  the  "Harzreise  im  Winter."  For  a  year 
and  a  half,  since  the  time  he  had  composed  it  in  Ansbach,  he  had 
never  again  thought  of  it;  it  had  lain  untouched.  Suddenly  the 
fire  of  creation  had  flamed  up  in  him;  he  could  once  more  bind  the 
incoherent,  and  make  what  had  been  merely  implied  or  indicated 
take  definite  shape. 

He  would  play  a  movement  again  and  again,  trying  to  connect 
it  with  what  went  before  or  came  after;  he  would  take  his  pencil 
and  write  in  a  few  notes  here  or  there;  then  he  would  try  it  again, 
and  smile  to  himself  in  a  strange,  confused,  and  yet  enchanted 
way,  when  he  saw  that  the  motif  was  complete,  perfect.  Gertrude 
was  drawn  still  closer  to  him.  In  her  awe-struck  admiration  she 
crouched  on  the  floor  beside  him.  She  would  have  liked  to  creep 
into  the  piano,  and  give  her  soul  the  opportunity  it  sought  to 
express  itself  in  the  tones  that  came  from  the  strings.  When 
Daniel  had  finished,  she  pressed  her  head  to  his  hips,  and  reached 
her  hot  hands  up  to  him. 

Daniel  was  terrified;  for  he  recalled  instantaneously  another 
occasion  on  which  another  woman  had  done  precisely  the  same 
thing.  His  eye  involuntarily  fell  on  the  mask  of  Zingarella. 
He  was  not  conscious  of  the  connection;  there  was  no  visible  bridge 
between  the  two  incidents;  Gertrude's  face  was  too  unlike  that  of 
its  momentary  prototype.  But  with  a  feeling  of  awe  he  detected 
a  mysterious  liaison  between  then  and  now:  he  imagined  he  could 
hear  a  voice  calling  to  him  from  the  distant  shores  of  yonder 
world. 

He  laid  his  hand  on  Gertrude's  hair.  She  interpreted  the  ges- 
ture as  a  visible  sign  that  his  promise  had  been  fulfilled;  that  this 
work  belonged  to  her;  that  he  had  created  it  for  her,  had  taken  it 
from  her  heart,  and  was  returning  it  to  the  heart  from  whence 
it  came. 


ZJerfuss,  the  music  dealer,  had  sent  out  invitations  to  a  concert. 
Daniel    did    not    feel    like    going.     Gertrude    asked    Eleanore    if 


DANIEL  AND  GERTRUDE  173 

she  would  not  go  with  her.  Daniel  called  for  them  after  the 
concert. 

Elesnore  told  him  on  the  way  home  that  she  had  received  a 
letter  for  him  that  afternoon  bearing  a  London  stamp. 

"From  Benda?"  asked  Daniel  quickly. 

"It  is  Benda's  handwriting,"  replied  Eleanore.  "I  was  going  to 
bring  it  to  you  when  Gertrude  called  for  me.  Wait  out  in  the 
front  of  the  house,  and  I'll  go  in  and  get  it." 

"Take  dinner  with  us  this  evening,  Eleanore,"  said  Gertrude, 
looking  rather  uncertainly  at  Daniel. 

"If  it  is  agreeable  to  Daniel.  .  .  ." 

"No  nonsense,  Eleanore,  of  course  it  is  agreeable  to  me,"  said 
Daniel. 

A  quarter  of  an  hour  later  Daniel  was  sitting  by  the  lamp  read- 
ing Benda's  letter. 

The  first  thing  his  friend  told  him  was  that  he  was  to  join  a 
scientific  expedition  to  the  Congo,  and  that  his  party  would  follow 
almost  exactly  the  same  route  that  had  been  taken  by  the  Stanley 
Expedition  when  it  set  out  to  look  for  Emin  Pascha. 

Benda  wrote:  "This  letter  then,  my  dear  friend,  is  written  to 
say  good-bye  for  a  number  of  years,  perhaps  forever.  I  feel  as  if 
I  had  been  born  anew.  I  have  eyes  again;  and  the  ideas  that  fill 
my  brain  are  no  longer  condemned  to  be  stifled  in  the  morass  of 
imprisoned  colleagues,  loyal  and  inimical.  To  labour  in  nature's 
laboratory  will  make  me  forget  the  wrongs  I  have  suffered,  the 
injustice  that  has  been  done  me.  Hunger  and  thirst,  disease  and 
danger  will  of  course  have  to  be  endured;  they  are  the  effects  of 
those  crimes  of  civilisation  that  spare  the  body  while  they  poison 
the  mind  and  soul." 

Further  on  Benda  wrote:  "I  am  bound  to  my  home  by  only  two 
people,  my  mother  and  you.  When  I  think  of  you,  a  feeling  of 
pride  comes  over  me;  every  hour  we  spent  together  is  indelibly 
stamped  on  my  heart.  But  there  is  one  delicate  point:  it  is  a 
point  of  conscience.  Call  it,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  a  chip;  call 
it  anything  you  please.  The  fact  is  I  have  had  a  Don  Quixotic 
run  in,  and  I  have  got  to  defend  myself." 

Daniel  shook  his  head  and  read  on.  Benda  knew  nothing  of 
his  marriage.  He  did  not  even  seem  to  know  that  Daniel  and 
Gertrude  had  been  engaged.  Or  if  he  had  known  it  he  had 
forgotten  it.  Daniel  could  hardly  believe  his  own  eyes  when  he 
came  to  the  following  passage:  "My  greatest  anxiety  always  lay 
in  the  fear  that  you  would  pass  Eleanore  by.  I  was  too  cowardly 


174  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

to  tell  you  how  I  felt  on  this  point,  and  I  have  reproached  myself 
ever  since  for  my  cowardice.  Now  that  I  am  leaving  I  tell  you 
how  I  feel  about  this  matter,  though  not  exactly  with  the  sensation 
of  performing  a  belated  task." 

For  Heaven's  sake,  thought  Daniel,  what  is  he  trying  to  do  to 
me? 

"I  have  often  thought  about  it  in  quiet  hours;  it  gave  me  the 
same  feeling  of  satisfaction  that  I  have  in  a  chemical  experiment, 
when  the  reactions  of  the  various  elements  take  place  as  they  should: 
what  Eleanore  says  is  your  word;  what  you  feel  is  Eleanore's 
law." 

He  is  seeing  ghosts,  cried  Daniel,  he  is  tangling  up  the  threads 
of  my  life.  What  does  he  mean?  Why  does  he  do  it? 

"Don't  neglect  what  I  am  telling  you!  Don't  crush  that  won- 
derful flower!  The  girl  is  a  rare  specimen;  the  rarest  I  know. 
You  need  your  whole  heart  with  all  its  powers  of  love  and  kindness 
to  appreciate  her.  But  if  rny  words  reach  you  too  late,  please  tear 
this  letter  into  shreds,  and  get  the  whole  idea  out  of  your  mind 
as  soon  and  completely  as  possible." 

"Come,  let's  eat,"  said  Gertrude,  as  she  entered  the  room  with 
a  dish  of  pickled  herring. 

Eleanore  was  sitting  on  the  sofa  looking  at  Daniel  quizzically. 
He  was  lost  in  thought. 

Daniel  looked  up,  and  studied  the  two  women  as  if  they  were 
the  figures  of  a  hallucination:  the  one  in  dark  red,  the  other  in 
dark  blue;  minor  and  major  keys.  The  two  stood  side  by  side, 
and  yet  so  far  removed  from  each  other:  they  were  the  two  poles 
of  his  world. 


XI 

"What  has  Benda  got  to  say? "   asked   Gertrude   hesitatingly. 

"Just  think,  he  is  going  to  Africa,"  replied  Daniel,  with  a  voice 
as  if  he  were  lying.  "Curious,  isn't  it?  I  suppose  he  is  on  the 
ocean  by  this  time." 

With  an  expression  on  his  face  that  clearly  betrayed  the  fact 
that  he  was  afraid  the  sisters  might  somehow  divine  or  suspect  the 
parts  of  the  letter  he  wished  to  keep  to  himself,  he  read  as  much 
of  it  as  he  dared  to  them. 

"Why  don't  you  read  on?"  asked  Eleanore,  when  he  paused. 

She  bent  over  the  table,  filled  with  a  burning  curiosity  to  know 
the  whole  contents  of  the  letter,  and  while  so  doing  her  hair 


DANIEL  AND  GERTRUDE  175 

became  entangled   in   the  metal  bric-a-brac  of  the  hanging  lamp. 
Gertrude  got  up  and  liberated  her. 

Daniel  had  laid  his  hand  over  the  letter,  and  was  looking  at 
Eleanore  threateningly.  His  eye  and  that  of  the  captured  girl 
chanced  to  meet;  she  struggled  between  a  feeling  of  amusement 
and  one  of  annoyance.  It  gave  Daniel  an  uncomfortable  feeling  to 
have  her  eyes  so  close  to  his. 

"Don't  you  know  that  that  is  not  polite?"  he  asked.  "We  have 
some  secrets,  probably,  Benda  and  I." 

"I  merely  thought  that  Benda  had  sent  me  his  greetings,"  replied 
Eleanore,  and  blushed  with  embarrassment. 

Daniel  then  held  the  letter  above  the  chimney  of  the  lamp, 
waited  until  it  had  caught  fire,  and  then  threw  it  on  the  floor, 
where  it  burned  up. 

"It  is  late,  and  father  is  already  waiting,"  said  Eleanore,  after 
they  had  eaten  in  great  haste. 

"I  will  take  you  home,"  declared  Daniel.  Surprised  by  such 
unusual  gallantry,  Eleanore  looked  at  him  with  amazement.  He 
at  once  became  moody;  she  was  still  more  surprised.  "I  can  go 
home  alone,  Daniel,"  she  said  in  a  tone  of  noticeable  seriousness, 
"you  do  not  need  to  put  yourself  out  for  me." 

"Put  myself  out?  What  do  you  mean?  Are  you  one  of  those 
people  who  can't  keep  a  tune,  and  step  on  the  pedal  when  their 
sentiment  runs  short?" 

Eleanore  had  nothing  to  say. 

"Put  your  great  coat  on,  Daniel,"  said  Gertrude  in  the  hall, 
"it  is  cold  and  windy  out." 

She  wanted  to  help  him  on  with  it,  but  he  threw  it  in  the 
clothes  press;  he  was  irritated. 

He  walked  along  at  Eleanore's  side  through  the  deserted  streets. 

She  had  already  put  the  key  in  the  front  door,  when  she  turned 
around,  looked  up  in  a  most  unhappy  way,  and  said:  "Daniel,  what 
in  the  world  is  the  matter  with  you?  When  I  look  at  you,  a  feel- 
ing of  anguish  and  distress  comes  over  me.  What  have  I  done 
that  you  should  act  so  disagreeably  toward  me?" 

"Oh,  forget  it,  think  about  something  else,  don't  mention  the 
subject  any  more,"  said  Daniel,  in  a  rough,  rude  voice.  But  the 
glance  she  fixed  on  him  was  so  stern  and  unpitying,  so  testing  and 
so  un-girl-like,  so  strong  and  so  bold,  that  he  felt  his  heart  grow 
softer.  "Let  us  take  a  little  walk,"  he  said. 

For  a  long  time  they  paced  back  and  forth  in  perfect  silence. 
Then  she  asked  him  what  he  was  working  on  now.  He  made 


176  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

cautious,  non-committal  replies,  and  then  suddenly  he  was  over- 
whelmed with  a  flood  of  words.  He  remarked  that  he  felt  at 
times  as  if  he  were  struggling  with  goblins  in  the  dark.  What 
gushed  forth  from  the  deepest  depths  of  his  soul,  he  said,  was 
somehow  or  other  too  noisy  and  blatant,  and  died  in  his  hands 
while  he  was  trying  to  create  an  appropriate  form  for  it.  He  said 
he  had  no  success  with  anything  unless  it  was  something  disem- 
bodied, incorporeal,  the  melody  of  which  had  thus  far  found  an 
echo  in  no  human  breast.  Therefore  he  seemed  to  be  groping 
around,  without  anchorage,  after  sprites  from  the  land  of  no-where. 
And  the  more  domineering  the  order  was  to  which  he  subjected 
his  mind  and  his  fancy,  the  more  lost  and  hopeless  his  earthly  self 
seemed  to  be  as  it  drifted  in  the  chaos  of  the  everyday  world. 
He  remarked  that  heaven  was  in  his  dreams,  hell  in  his  association 
with  men.  And  how  dead  everything  about  him  seemed  to  be! 
It  was  all  like  a  cemetery;  it  was  a  cemetery.  His  doughtiest  life 
was  gradually  transformed  into  a  shadow  and  lacerated  into  a  mon- 
strosity. But  that  he  was  aggrieved  at  men  he  felt  full  well;  for 
they  lived  more  innocent  lives  than  he,  and  they  were  more  useful. 

"But  you  have  some  one  to  hold  to,"  said  Eleanore,  realising  that 
she  was  skating  on  thin  ice,  "you  have  Gertrude." 

To  this  he  made  no  reply.  She  waited  for  him  to  say  some- 
thing, and  when  she  saw  that  he  did  not  care  to  make  a  reply  of 
any  kind,  she  smiled  at  him  as  if  in  a  last  attempt  to  get  him  to 
tell  her  what  was  the  matter.  Then  all  peace  of  mind  van- 
ished from  her  soul — and  her  face.  Every  time  they  passed  a 
street  lamp  she  turned  her  head  to  one  side. 

"She  is  after  all  in  the  presence  of  God  your  wife,"  said 
Eleanore  gently  and  with  remarkable  solemnity. 

Daniel  looked  up  and  listened  as  if  greatly  abashed.  Speaking 
out  into  the  wind  he  said:  "The  over-tone,  Eleanore;  a  bird  twit- 
tering in  the  bush.  In  the  presence  of  God  my  wife!  But  in  the 
roots  the  bass  is  howling;  it  is  an  infernal  tremolo;  do  you  hear  it?" 

He  laughed  as  if  mad,  and  his  face,  with  his  spotted  teeth,  was 
turned  toward  her.  She  took  him  by  the  arm,  and  implored  him 
to  straighten  up. 

He  pressed  her  hand  to  his  forehead,  and  said:  "The  letter, 
Eleanore,  the  letter  .  .  .!" 

"Now  you  see,  Daniel,  I  knew  it  all  along.  What  was  in  the 
letter?" 

"I   dare  not  tell  you,  otherwise  my  sweet  over-tone  will  take  a 


DANIEL  AND  GERTRUDE  177 

somersault,  become  mingled  with  the  gloomy  bass,  and  be  lost 
forever." 

Eleanore  looked  at  him  in  amazement;  he  had  never  seemed 
so  much  like  a  fool  to  her  in  her  life. 

"Listen,"  he  said,  putting  his  arm  in  hers,  "I  have  composed  a 
song;  here  is  the  way  it  goes."  He  sang  a  melody  he  had  written 
for  one  of  Eichendorff's  poems.  In  it  there  was  a  tender  sadness. 
"While  everything  is  still  and  everybody  asleep,  my  soul  greets 
the  eternal  light,  and  rests  like  a  ship  in  the  harbour." 

They  had  again  reached  the  front  door;  they  had  been  strolling 
back  and  forth  for  two  hours. 

He  had  an  unpleasant  feeling  when  he  went  up  the  steps  of 
his  apartment. 

Gertrude  was  sitting  where  he  had  left  her:  by  the  clothes 
press.  She  had  wrapped  his  top  coat  about  her  legs,  her  back  was 
leaning  against  the  wall,  her  head  had  sunk  on  her  shoulder;  she 
was  asleep.  She  was  not  awakened  by  his  coming.  Beside  her 
stood  the  candle,  now  burned  down  to  the  edge  of  the  metal 
holder;  it  was  spluttering.  The  light  from  it  fell  on  Gertrude's 
face,  lighting  it  up  irregularly  and  lending  it  a  painful  expression. 

"In  the  presence  of  God  my  wife,"  murmured  Daniel.  He 
did  not  waken  Gertrude  until  the  candle  had  gone  out.  Then  he 
did;  she  got  up,  and  the  two  went  off  in  darkness  to  their  bed 
room. 


THE  GLASS  CASE  BREAKS 


DANIEL  wished  to  see  Eleanore  skate;  he  went  out  to  the  Maxfeld 
at  a  time  he  knew  she  would  be  there. 

He  saw  her  quite  soon,  and  was  delighted  when  she  glided  by; 
but  when  she  was  lost  in  the  crowd,  he  frowned.  High  school 
boys  followed  her  with  cowardly  and  obtrusive  forwardness.  One 
student,  who  wore  a  red  cap,  fell  flat  on  his  stomach  as  he  bowed 
to  her. 

She  ran  into  two  army  officers,  or  the}  into  her;  this  put  an 
end  for  the  time  being  to  the  inspired  grace  of  her  movement. 
When  she  started  off  a  second  time,  drawing  a  beautiful  circle,  she 
saw  Daniel  and  came  over  to  him.  She  smiled  in  a  confidential 
way,  chatted  with  him,  glided  backwards  in  a  circle  about  him, 
laughed  at  his  impatience  because  she  would  not  stand  still,  threw 
her  muff  over  to  him,  asked  him  to  throw  it  back,  and,  with  arms 
raised  to  catch  it,  cut  an  artistic  figure  on  the  ice. 

The  picture  she  offered  filled  Daniel  with  reverence  for  the 
harmony  of  her  being. 

IX 


They  frequently  took  walks  after  sunset  out  to  the  suburbs 
and  up  to  the  castle.  Gertrude  was  pleased  to  see  that  Daniel  and 
Eleanore  were  good  friends  again. 

One  time  when  they  walked  up  the  castle  hill,  Eleanore  told 
Daniel  that  there  was  where  she  had  taken  leave  of  Eberhard  von 
Auffenberg.  She  could  recall  everything  he  said,  and  she  con- 
fessed with  marked  candour  what  she  had  said  in  reply.  The 
story  about  the  old  herb  woman  Daniel  did  not  find  amusing.  He 
stopped,  and  said:  "Child,  don't  have  anything  to  do  with  spirits! 
Never  interfere  with  your  lovely  reality." 

"Don't  talk  in  that  way,"  replied  Eleanore.  "I  dislike  it.  The 
tone  of  your  voice  and  the  expression  on  your  face  make  me  feel 
as  if  I  were  a  woman  of  worldly  habits." 

178 


THE  GLASS  CASE  BREAKS  179 

They  went  into  the  Church  of  St.  Sebaldus,  and  revelled  in  the 
beauty  of  the  bronze  castings  on  the  tomb  of  the  saint.  They 
also  went  to  the  Germanic  Museum,  where  they  loved  to  wander 
around  in  the  countless  deserted  passage-ways,  stopped  and  studied 
the  pictures,  and  never  tired  of  looking  at  the  old  toys,  globes, 
kitchen  utensils,  and  armour. 

Eleanore's  greatest  pleasure,  however,  was  derived  from  saunter- 
ing through  the  narrow  alleys.  She  like  to  stand  in  an  open  door, 
and  look  into  the  court  at  some  weather-beaten  statue;  to  stand 
before  the  window  of  an  antique  shop,  and  study  the  brocaded 
objects,  silver  chains,  rings  with  gaudy  stones,  engraved  plates,  and 
rare  clocks.  All  manner  of  roguish  ideas  came  to  her  mind,  and 
around  every  wish  she  wove  a  fairy  tale.  The  meagrest  incident 
sufficed  to  send  her  imagination  to  the  land  of  wonders,  just  as  if 
the  fables  and  legends  that  the  people  had  been  passing  on  from 
hearth  to  hearth  for  centuries  were  leading  a  life  of  reality  over 
there. 

The  tailor  sitting  with  crossed  legs  on  his  table;  the  smith  ham- 
mering the  red-hot  iron;  the  juggler  who  made  the  rounds  of  the 
city  with  the  trained  monkey;  the  Jewish  pawnbroker,  the  chimney 
sweep,  the  one-legged  veteran,  an  old  woman  who  looked  out  from 
some  cellar,  a  spider's  nest  in  the  corner  of  a  wall — around  all 
these  things  and  still  others  she  wound  her  tale  of  weal  or  woe.  It 
seemed  that  what  she  saw  had  never  been  seen  by  mortal  eyes 
before.  It  seemed  that  the  things  or  people  that  attracted  her 
attention  had  not  existed  until  she  had  seen  them.  For  this  reason 
she  was  never  in  a  bad  humour,  never  bored,  never  lazy,  never 
tired. 

There  was  something  about  her,  however,  that  Daniel  could  not 
understand.  He  did  not  know  wherein  the  riddle  lay,  he  merely 
knew  that  there  was  one.  If  she  gave  him  her  hand,  it  seemed 
to  him  that  there  was  something  unreal  about  it.  If  he  requested 
that  she  look  at  him,  she  did  so,  but  it  seemed  that  her  glance  was 
divided,  half  going  to  the  left,  half  to  the  right,  neither  meeting 
his.  If  she  came  so  close  to  him  that  their  arms  touched,  he  had 
the  feeling  that  he  could  not  take  hold  of  her  if  he  wished  to. 

He  struggled  against  the  enticement  that  lay  in  this  peculiarity. 

Her  presence  ennobled  his  ambition  and  dispelled  his  whims. 
She  gave  him  the  beautifully  formed  cloud,  the  tree  covered  with 
young  foliage,  the  moon  that  rises  up  over  the  roofs  of  the  houses — 
she  gave  him  the  whole  earth  over  which  he  was  hastening,  a 
stranger  to  peace,  unfamiliar  with  contentment. 


i8o  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

He  cherished  no  suspicion;  he  had  no  foreshadowing  of  his 
fate.  And  Eleanore  was  not  afraid  of  him;  she,  too,  was  without 
a  sense  of  danger. 

in 

One  Sunday  afternoon  in  April  they  took  a  walk  out  into  the 
country.  Gertrude  had  been  suffering  for  weeks  from  lassitude 
and  could  not  go  with  them. 

Eleanore  was  a  superb  walker.  It  gave  Daniel  extreme  pleasure 
to  walk  along  with  her,  keeping  step,  moving  hastily.  The  quick 
movement  increased  his  susceptibility  to  the  charm  of  the  changing 
landscapes.  It  was  quite  different  when  he  walked  with  Gertrude. 
She  was  slow,  given  to  introspection,  thoughtful,  and  not  very 
strong. 

In  the  course  of  an  hour  clouds  gathered  in  the  sky,  the  sun 
disappeared,  big  drops  began  to  fall.  Eleanore  had  taken  neither 
umbrella  nor  rain  coat  along;  she  began  to  walk  more  rapidly.  If 
they  tried,  they  could  reach  the  inn  beyond  the  forest,  and  find 
shelter  from  the  storm. 

Just  as  they  slipped  through  the  crowd  that  had  hurried  up  the 
road  to  the  same  refuge  and  entered  the  inn,  the  sluices  of  heaven 
seemed  to  open,  and  a  cloud-burst  followed.  They  were  standing 
in  the  hall.  Eleanore  was  warm,  and  did  not  wish  to  remain  in 
the  draught.  They  went  into  the  restaurant;  it -was  so  full  that 
they  had  considerable  trouble  to  find  seats.  A  working  man,  his 
wife,  and  four  sickly-looking  children  squeezed  up  more  closely 
together;  the  two  youngest  boys  gave  them  their  chairs  and  went  to 
look  for  others. 

The  clouds  hung  low,  causing  premature  darkness.  Lamps  were 
lighted,  and  their  odour  mingled  freely  with  the  other  odours  of 
this  over-crowded  room.  A  few  village  musicians  played  some 
unknown  piece;  the  eyes  of  the  workingman's  children  shone  with 
delight.  Because  they  sat  there  so  quietly — and  because  they  looked 
so  pale — Eleanore  gave  each  of  the  children  a  sandwich.  The 
mother  was  very  grateful,  and  said  so.  The  father,  who  said  he 
was  the  foreman  in  a  mirror  factory,  began  to  talk  with  Daniel 
about  the  troubles  of  the  present  era. 

All  of  a  sudden  Daniel  caught  sight  of  a  familiar  face  at  a 
nearby  table.  As  it  turned  to  one  side,  he  saw  in  the  dim,  smelly 
light  another  face  he  knew,  and  then  a  third  and  a  fourth.  It 
was  all  so  ghost-like  in  the  room  that  it  was  some  time  before  he 


THE  GLASS  CASE  BREAKS  181 

knew  just  where  to  place  them.  Then  it  occurred  to  him  where 
they  came  from. 

Herr  Hadebusch  and  Frau  Hadebusch,  Herr  Francke  and 
Benjamin  Dorn  were  having  a  little  Sunday  outing.  The  brush- 
maker's  wife  was  radiant  with  joy  on  seeing  her  old  lodger.  She 
nodded,  she  blinked,  she  folded  her  hands  as  if  touched  at  the 
sight,  and  Herr  Hadebusch  raised  his  beer  glass,  eager  to  drink  a 
toast  to  Daniel's  health. 

They  could  not  quite  make  out  who  Eleanore  was;  they  took 
her  for  Daniel's  wife.  This  misunderstanding,  it  seemed,  was 
then  cleared  up  by  the  Methodist  after  he  had  craned  his  neck  and 
called  his  powers  of  recognition  into  play.  The  demoniac  woman 
nodded,  to  be  sure,  and  kept  on  blinking,  but  in  her  face  there  was 
an  expression  of  rustic  disapproval.  Her  mouth  was  opened,  and 
the  tusks  of  her  upper  jaw  shone  forth  uncannily  from  the  black 
abyss. 

The  swan  neck  of  the  Methodist  was  screwed  up  so  hardily 
and  picturesquely  above  the  heads  of  the  others  that  Eleanore 
could  not  help  but  notice  his  physical  and  spiritual  peculiarities. 
She  wrinkled  her  brow,  and  looked  at  Daniel  questioningly. 

She  looked  around,  and  saw  a  great  many  people  from  the  city 
whom  she  knew  either  by  name  or  from  having  met  them  so  fre- 
quently. There  was  a  saleswoman  from  Ludwig  Street;  a  clerk 
with  a  pock-marked  face  from  a  produce  store;  the  dignified 
preceptress  of  a  Kindergarten;  an  official  of  the  savings  bank;  the 
hat-maker  from  the  corner  of  the  Market  Place  with  his  grown 
daughter;  and  the  sergeant  who  invariably  saluted  when  he  passed 
by  her. 

All  these  people  were  in  their  Sunday  clothes  and  seemed  care- 
free  and  good  natured.  But  as  soon  as  they  saw  Eleanore  a  mean 
expression  came  over  them.  The  fluttering  of  the  lights  made 
their  faces  look  ghastly,  while  partial  intoxication  made  it  easy 
to  read  their  filthy,  lazy  thoughts.  Full  of  anxiety,  Eleanore 
looked  up  at  Daniel,  as  if  she  felt  she  would  have  to  rely  on  his 
wealth  of  experience  and  greater  superiority  in  general. 

He  was  sorry  for  her  and  sorry  for  himself.  He  knew  what 
was  in  store  for  him  and  her.  When  he  looked  over  this  Hogar- 
thian  gathering,  and  saw,  despite  its  festive,  convivial  mood,  hidden 
lusts  of  every  description,  crippled  passions,  secreted  envy,  and 
mysterious  vindictiveness  spread  about  like  the  stench  of  foul 
blood,  he  felt  it  was  quite  futile  to  cherish  delusions  of  any  kind 
as  to  what  was  before  him.  To  spare  Eleanore  and  to  defend  her, 


182  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

to  leave  her  rather  than  be  guilty  of  causing  the  child-like  smile 
on  her  lips  to  die  out  and  disappear  forever — this  he  believed  in 
the  bottom  of  his  heart  he  could  promise  both  her  and  himself. 

The  working  man  and  his  family  had  left;  and  as  it  was  no 
longer  raining,  most  of  the  other  guests  had  also  gone.  Up  in 
the  room  above  people  were  dancing.  The  lamps  were  shaking, 
and  it  was  easy  to  hear  the  low  sounds  of  the  bass  violin.  Daniel 
took  out  his  pencil,  and  began  writing  notes  on  the  table.  Eleanore 
bent  over,  looking  at  him,  and,  like  him,  fell  to  dreamy  thinking. 

Neither  wished  to  know  what  the  other  was  thinking;  they  enter- 
tained themselves  in  silence;  inwardly  they  were  drawn  closer  and 
closer  together,  as  if  by  some  mysterious  and  irresistible  power. 
They  had  not  noticed  that  it  was  evening,  that  the  room  was  empty, 
that  the  waiters  had  taken  the  glasses  away,  and  that  the  dance 
music  in  the  room  above  had  stopped. 

They  sat  there  in  the  half-lighted  corner  side  by  side,  as  if  in 
some  dark,  deserted  cavern.  When  they  finally  came  out  of  their 
deep  silence  and  looked  at  each  other,  they  were  first  surprised 
and  then  dismayed. 

"What  are  we  going  to  do?"  asked  Eleanore  half  in  a  whisper, 
"it  is  late;  we  must  be  going  home." 

The  sky  was  clouded,  a  warm  wind  swept  across  the  plains,  the 
road  was  full  of  puddles.  Here  and  there  a  light  flashed  from  the 
darkness,  and  a  dog  barked  every  now  and  then  in  the  distant 
villages.  When  the  road  turned  into  the  forest,  Daniel  gave 
Eleanore  his  arm.  She  took  it,  but  soon  let  go.  Daniel  stopped, 
and  said  almost  angrily:  "Are  we  bewitched,  both  of  us?  Speak, 
Eleanore,  speak!" 

"What  is  there  for  me  to  say?"  she  asked  gently.  "I  am  fright- 
ened; it  is  so  dark." 

"You  are  frightened,  Eleanore,  you?  You  do  not  know  the 
night.  It  has  never  yet  been  night  in  your  soul;  nor  night  in  the 
world  about  you.  Now  you  appreciate  perhaps  how  a  being  of  the 
night  feels." 

She  made  no  reply. 

"Give  me  your  hand,"  he  said,  "I  will  lead  you." 

She  gave  him  her  hand.  Soon  they  saw  the  lights  of  the  city. 
He  took  her  to  her  house;  but  when  they  reached  it,  they  did  not 
say  good-bye:  they  looked  at  each  other  with  dazed,  helpless, 
seeking  eyes;  they  were  both  pale  and  speechless. 

Eleanore  hastened  into  the  k  "",  but  turned  as  she  reached  the 
stairs,  and  waved  to  him  with  a  smile,  as  if  the  two  were  separated 


THE  GLASS  CASE  BREAKS  183 

by  a  hazy  distance.  As  he  fixed  his  eyes  on  the  spot  where  he 
saw  the  slender  figure  disappear,  he  felt  as  if  something  were 
clutching  his  throat. 


IV 

Without  the  slightest  regard  for  time,  without  feeling  tired, 
without  definite  thoughts,  detached  from  the  present  and  all  sense 
of  obligation,  Daniel  wandered  aimlessly  through  the  streets.  A 
low  dive  on  Schiitt  Island  saw  him  as  a  late  guest.  He  sat  there 
with  his  hands  before  his  eyes,  neither  seeing  nor  hearing  nor 
feeling,  all  crouched  up  in  a  bundle.  Dirty  little  puddles  of  gin 
glistened  on  the  top  of  the  table,  the  gamblers  were  cursing,  the 
proprietor  was  drunk. 

The  fire  alarm  drove  him  out:  there  was  a  fire  in  the  suburbs 
of  Schoppershof.  The  sky  was  reddened,  it  was  drizzling.  It 
seemed  to  Daniel  that  the  air  was  reeking  with  the  premonition 
of  a  heart-crushing  disaster.  Above  the  Laufer  Gate  a  sheaf  of 
sparks  was  whirling  about. 

Just  then  the  melody  for  which  he  had  waited  so  long  through- 
out so  many  nights  of  restless  despair  arose  before  him  in  a 
grandiose  circle.  It  seemed  as  if  born  for  the  words  of  the 
"Herzreise":  "With  the  dim  burning  torch  thou  lightest  for  him 
the  ferries  at  night  over  bottomless  paths,  across  desolate  fields." 

In  mournful  thirds,  receding  again  and  again,  the  voices  sank 
to  earth;  just  one  remained  on  high,  alone,  piously  dissociated 
from  profane  return. 

He  hummed  the  melody  with  trembling  lips  to  himself,  until 
he  met  the  nineteenth-century  Socrates  with  his  followers  in  the 
Rosenthal.  They  were  still  gipsying  through  the  night. 

They  all  talked  at  once;  they  were  going  to  the  fire.  Daniel 
passed  by  unrecognised.  The  shrill  voice  of  the  painter  Krapotkin 
pierced  the  air:  "Hail  to  the  flames!  Hail  to  those  whose  coming 
we  announce!"  The  laughter  of  the  slough  brothers  died  away 
in  the  distance. 

Gertrude  was  standing  at  the  head  of  the  stairs  with  a  candle 
in  her  hand;  she  had  been  waiting  there  since  twelve  o'clock.  At 
eleven  she  had  gone  over  to  her  father's  house  and  rung  the  bell. 
Eleanore,  frightened,  had  raised  the  window,  and  called  down  to 
her  that  Daniel  had  left  her  at  nine. 

He  took  the  half-inanimate  woman  into  the  living  room:  "You 
must  never  wait  for  me,  never,"  he  said. 


1 84  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

He  opened  the  window,  pointed  to  the  glowing  sky  beyond  the 
church,  and  as  she  leaned  her  head,  with  eyes  closed,  on  his 
shoulder,  he  said  with  a  scurrilous  distortion  of  his  face:  "Behold! 
The  fire!  Hail  to  the  flames!  Hail  to  those  whose  coming  we 
announce!" 


The  following  morning  Eleanore  had  no  time  to  think  of  why 
Daniel  had  not  gone  home. 

Jordan  had  just  finished  his  breakfast  when  some  one  rang  the 
door  bell  with  unusual  rapidity.  Eleanore  went  to  the  door,  and 
came  back  with  Herr  Zittel,  who  was  in  a  rare  state  of  excitement. 

"I  have  come  to  inquire  about  your  son,  Jordan,"  he  began, 
clearing  his  throat  as  though  he  were  embarrassed. 

"About  my  son?"  replied  Jordan  astonished,  "I  thought  you  had 
given  him  three  days'  leave." 

"I   know  nothing  about  that,"  replied  Herr  Zittel. 

"Last  Saturday  evening  he  went  on  a  visit  to  his  friend  Gerber 
in  Bamberg  to  celebrate  the  founding  of  a  club,  or  something  of 
that  sort;  we  are  not  expecting  him  until  to-morrow.  If  you 
know  nothing  about  this  arrangement,  Herr  Diruf  must  have  given 
him  his  leave." 

The  chief  of  the  clerical  department  bit  his  lips.  "Can  you 
give  me  the  address  of  this  Herr  Gerber?"  he  asked,  "I  should 
like  to  send  him  a  telegram." 

"For  heaven's  sake,  what  has  happened,  Herr  Zittel ?"  cried 
Jordan,  turning  pale. 

Herr  Zittel  stared  into  space  with  his  gloomy,  greenish  eyes: 
"On  Saturday  afternoon  Herr  Diruf  gave  your  son  a  cheque  for 
three  thousand  seven  hundred  marks,  and  told  him  to  cash  it  at 
the  branch  of  the  Bavarian  Bank  and  bring  the  money  to  me.  I 
was  busy  and  did  not  go  to  the  office  in  the  afternoon.  To-day, 
about  a  half-hour  ago,  Herr  Diruf  asked  me  whether  I  had 
received  the  money.  It  turned  out  that  your  son  had  not  put  in 
his  appearance  on  Saturday,  and  since  he  has  not  shown  up  this 
morning  either,  you  will  readily  see  why  we  are  so  uneasy." 

Jordan  straightened  up  as  stiff  as  a  flag  pole:  "Do  you  mean  to 
insinuate  that  my  son  is  guilty  of  some  criminal  transaction?"  he 
thundered  forth,  and  struck  the  top  of  the  table  with  the  bones 
of  his  clenched  fist. 

Herr  Zittel   shrugged   his   shoulders:  "It   is,   of   course,   possible 


THE  GLASS  CASE  BREAKS  185 

that  there  has  been  some  misunderstanding,  or  that  some  one  has 
failed  to  perform  his  duty.  But  in  any  event  the  affair  is  serious. 
Something  must  be  done  at  once,  and  if  you  leave  me  in  the  lurch 
I  shall  have  to  call  in  the  police." 

Jordan's  face  turned  ashen  pale.  For  some  reason  or  other  he 
began  to  fumble  about  in  his  long  black  coat  for  the  pocket.  The 
coat  had  no  pocket,  and  yet  he  continued  to  feel  for  it  with  hasty 
fingers.  He  tried  to  speak,  but  his  tongue  refused  to  obey  him; 
beads  of  perspiration  settled  on  his  brow. 

Eleanore  embraced  him  with  solicitous  affection:  "Be  calm, 
Father,  don't  imagine  the  worst.  Sit  down,  and  let  us  talk  it 
over."  She  dried  the  perspiration  from  his  forehead  with  her 
handkerchief,  and  then  breathed  a  kiss  on  it. 

Jordan  fell  on  a  chair;  his  powers  of  resistance  were  gone;  he 
looked  at  Eleanore  with  beseeching  tenseness.  From  the  very  first 
she  had  known  what  had  happened  and  what  would  happen.  But 
she  dared  not  show  him  that  she  was  without  hope;  she  summoned 
all  the  power  at  her  resourceful  command  to  prevent  the  old  man 
from  having  a  paralytic  stroke. 

With  the  help  of  Herr  Zittel  she  wrote  out  a  telegram  to 
Gerber.  The  answer,  to  be  pre-paid,  was  to  be  sent  to  the  General 
Agency  of  the  Prudentia,  and  Eleanore  was  to  go  to  the  main  office 
between  eleven  and  twelve  o'clock.  She  accompanied  Herr  Zittel 
to  the  front  door,  whereupon  he  said:  "Do  everything  in  your 
power  to  get  the  money.  If  the  loss  can  be  made  good  at  once, 
Herr  Diruf  may  be  willing  not  to  take  the  case  to  the  courts." 

Eleanore  knew  full  well  that  it  would  be  exceedingly  difficult 
to  get  such  a  sum  as  this.  Her  father  had  no  money  in  the  bank; 
his  employer  had  lost  confidence  in  him  because  he  could  no 
longer  exert  himself;  what  he  needed  most  of  all  was  a  rest. 

She  entered  the  room  with  a  friendly  expression  on  her  face, 
and  remarked  quite  vivaciously:  "Now,  Father,  we  will  wait  and 
see  what  Benno  has  to  say;  and  in  order  that  you  may  not  worry 
so  much,  I  will  read  something  nice  1  >  you." 

Sitting  on  a  hassock  at  her  father's  feet  she  read  from  a  recent 
number  of  the  Gartcnlaube  the  description  of  an  ascent  of  Mont 
Blanc.  Then  she  read  another  article  that  her  eye  chanced  to  fall 
upon.  All  the  while  her  bright  voice  was  ringing  through  the 
room,  she  was  struggling  with  decisions  to.  which  she  might  come 
and  listening  to  the  ticking  of  the  clock.  That  her  father  no 
more  had  his  mind  on  what  she  was  reading  than  she  herself  was 
perfectly  clear  to  her. 


1 86  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

Finally  the  clock  struck  eleven.  She  got  up,  and  said  she  had 
to  go  to  the  kitchen  to  make  the  fire.  A  maid  usually  came  in  at 
eleven  to  get  dinner  for  the  family,  but  to-day  she  had  not 
appeared.  Out  in  the  hall  Eleanore  took  her  straw  hat,  and 
hastened  over  to  Gertrude's  as  fast  as  her  feet  could  carry  her. 
Daniel  was  not  at  home;  Gertrude  was  pealing  potatoes. 

In  three  sentences  Eleanore  had  told  her  sister  the  whole  story. 
"Now  you  come  with  me  at  once!  Go  up  and  stay  with  Father! 
See  that  he  does  not  leave  the  house!  I  will  be  back  in  half 
an  hour!" 

Gertrude  was  literally  dragged  down  the  steps  by  Eleanore; 
before  she  could  ask  questions  of  any  kind,  Eleanore  had  dis- 
appeared. 

At  the  General  Agency  Herr  Zittel  met  her  with  the  reply  from 
that  Gerber,  Benno's  friend.  It  bore  Gerber's  signature,  and 
read:  "Benno  Jordan  has  not  been  here." 

Benjamin  Dorn  stood  behind  Herr  Zittel;  he  displayed  an 
expression  of  soft,  smooth,  dirge-like  regret. 

"Herr  Diruf  would  like  to  speak  to  you,"  said  Herr  Zittel 
coldly. 

Eleanore  entered  Herr  Diruf 's  private  office;  her  face  was  pale. 
He  kept  on  writing  for  about  three  minutes  before  he  took  any 
notice  of  her.  Then  his  plum-like  eyes  opened  lazily,  a  rare, 
voluptuous  smile  sneaked  out  from  under  his  moustache  like  a  sloth- 
ful flash  of  heat  lightning;  he  said:  "The  sharper  has  gone  and 
done  it,  hasn't  he?" 

Eleanore  never  moved. 

"Can  the  embezzled  money  be  returned  within  twenty-four 
hours?"  asked  the  pudgy,  purple  prince  of  pen-pushers. 

"My  father  will  do  everything  that  is  humanly  possible,"  replied 
Eleanore  anxiously. 

"Be  so  good  as  to  inform  your  father  that  to-morrow  morning 
at  twelve  o'clock  the  charge  will  be  preferred  and  placed  in  the 
hands  of  the  police,  if  the  money  has  not  been  paid  by  that 
time." 

Eleanore  hastened  home.  Now  her  father  had  to  be  brought 
face  to  face  with  the  realities  of  the  case.  He  and  Gertrude  were 
sitting  close  to  each  other  in  terrible  silence.  Eleanore  revealed 
the  exact  state  of  affairs;  she  had  to. 

"My  good  name!"  groaned  Jordan. 

He  had  to  save  himself  from  disgrace;  the  twenty- four  hours 
seemed  to  offer  him  a  sure  means  of  doing  this.  He  had  not  the 


THE  GLASS  CASE  BREAKS  187 

remotest  doubt  but  that  he  could  find  friends  who  would  come 
to  his  aid;  for  he  had  something  of  which  he  could  boast:  a 
blameless  past  and  the  reputation  of  being  a  reliable  citizen. 

Thus  he  thought  it  over  to  himself.  And  as  soon  as  he  made 
up  his  mind  to  appeal  to  the  friends  of  whom  he  felt  he  was 
certain,  the  most  difficult  part  of  his  plan  seemed  to  have  been 
completed.  The  suffering  to  which  he  was  condemned  by  his 
wounded  pride  and  his  betrayed,  crushed  filial  affection  he  had  to 
bear  alone.  He  knew  that  this  was  a  separate  item. 

He  went  out  to  look  up  his  friends. 


The  first  one  he  appealed  to  was  the  brother-in-law  of  his  sister, 
First  Lieutenant  Kupferschmied,  retired.  His  sister  had  died  six 
months  ago,  leaving  nothing;  the  lieutenant,  however,  was  a  well- 
to-do  man.  He  had  married  into  the  family  of  a  rich  merchant. 
Jordan's  relation  to  him  had  always  been  pleasant;  indeed  the  old 
soldier  seemed  to  be  very  fond  of  him.  But  hardly  had  Jordan 
explained  his  mission  when  the  lieutenant  became  highly  excited. 
He  said  he  had  seen  this  disaster  coming.  He  remarked  that  any 
man  who  brings  up  his  children  in  excessive  ease  must  not  be  sur- 
prised if  they  come  to  a  bad  end.  He  remarked,  too,  that  no  power 
on  earth  could  persuade  him  to  invest  one  penny  in  Jordan's  case. 

Jordan  went  away  speechless. 

The  second  friend  he  appealed  to  was  his  acquaintance  of  long 
standing,  Judge  Riibsam.  From  him  he  heard  a  voluble  flow  of 
words  dealing  with  regrets,  expressions  of  disgust,  one  lament  after 
the  other,  a  jeremiade  on  hard  times,  maledictions  hurled  at  dilatory 
creditors,  infinite  consolation — and  empty  advice.  He  assured 
Jordan  that  yesterday  he  had  almost  the  requisite  sum  in  cash,  and 
that  he  might  have  it  again  some  time  next  month,  but  to-day — ah, 
to-day  his  taxes  were  due,  and  so  on,  and  so  on. 

Oppressed  by  the  weight  of  this  unexpected  humiliation,  he 
went  to  the  third  friend,  a  merchant  by  the  name  of  Hornbusch, 
to  whom  he  had  once  rendered  invaluable  assistance.  Herr  Horn- 
busch had  forgotten  all  about  this,  though  he  had  not  forgotten 
that  he  had  vainly  sounded  in  Jordan's  ears  a  warning  against  the 
ever-increasing  flippancy  of  young  Benno.  He  told  Jordan  that 
he  himself  was  just  then  in  urgent  need  of  money,  that  he  had 
only  last  month  been  obliged  to  sacrifice  a  mortgage,  and  that  his 
wife  had  pawned  her  diamonds. 


i88  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

Thus  it  went  with  the  fourth  friend,  an  architect  who  had  told 
him  once  that  he  would  sacrifice  money  and  reputation  for  him  if 
he  ever  got  into  trouble.  And  it  was  the  same  story  with  the  fifth 
and  sixth  and  seventh.  With  a  heart  as  heavy  as  lead,  Jordan 
decided  to  take  the  last  desperate  step:  He  went  to  Herr  Diruf 
himself.  He  asked  for  a  three  days'  extension  of  time.  Diruf 
sat  inapproachable  at  his  desk.  He  was  smoking  a  big  thick  Havana 
cigar,  his  solitaire  threw  off  its  blinding  fireworks,  he  smiled  a 
cold,  tired  smile  and  shook  his  head  in  astonishment. 

When  Jordan  came  home  that  evening  he  found  Daniel  and 
Gertrude  in  the  living  room.  Gertrude  went  up  to  him  to  sup- 
port him;  then  she  brought  him  a  glass  of  wine  as  a  stimulant: 
he  had  not  eaten  anything  since  breakfast. 

"Where  is  Eleanore?"  he  murmured,  but  seemed  to  take  no 
interest  in  the  reply  to  his  question.  He  fell  down  on  a  chair, 
and  buried  his  face  in  his  hands. 

Gertrude,  who  saw  his  strength  leaving  him  as  the  light  dies  out 
of  a  slowly  melting  candle,  became  dizzy  with  compassion.  Her 
last  hope  was  in  Eleanore,  who  had  left  at  five  o'clock  simply 
because  she  found  it  intolerable  to  sit  around,  hour  after  hour, 
doing  nothing  but  waiting  for  the  return  of  her  father.  At  every 
sound  that  could  be  heard  in  the  house,  Gertrude  pricked  up  her 
ears  in  eager  expectancy. 

Daniel  stood  by  the  window,  and  looked  out  across  the  deserted 
square  into  the  dull  red  glow  of  the  setting  sun. 

It  struck  seven,  then  half  past  seven,  eight,  and  Eleanore  had  not 
returned.  Daniel  began  to  pace  back  and  forth  through  the  room; 
he  was  nervous.  If  his  foot  chanced  to  strike  against  a  chair, 
Gertrude  shuddered. 

Shortly  after  eight,  steps  were  heard  outside.  The  key  rattled 
in  the  front  gate,  the  room  door  opened,  and  in  came  Eleanore— 
and  Philippina  Schimmelweis. 


Everybody  looked  at  Philippina;  even  Jordan  himself  honoured 
her  with  a  faint  glance.  Daniel  and  Gertrude  were  amazed. 
Daniel  did  not  recognise  his  cousin;  he  knew  nothing  about  her; 
he.  had  seen  her  but  once,  and  then  he  was  a  mere  child.  He  did 
not  know  who  this  repulsive-looking  individual  was,  and  demanded 
that  Eleanore  give  him  an  explanation.  As  he  did  this,  he  raised 
his  eyebrows. 


THE  GLASS  CASE  BREAKS  189 

Eleanore  was  the  only  one  Philippina  looked  at  in  a  kindly  way; 
in  Philippina's  own  face  there  was  an  expression  of  curiosity. 

Philippina's  whole  bearing  had  something  of  the  monstrous  about 
it.  Even  her  dress  was  picturesque,  adventuresome.  Her  great 
brown  straw  hat,  with  the  ribbon  sticking  straight  up  in  the  air, 
was  shoved  on  to  the  back  of  her  head  so  as  not  to  spoil  the  effect 
of  the  fashionable  bangs  that  hung  down  over  her  forehead.  Her 
loud,  checkered  dress  was  strapped  about  her  waist  with  a  cloth 
belt  so  tightly  that  the  contour  of  her  fat  body  was  made  to  look 
positively  ridiculous:  she  resembled  a  gigantic  hour  glass.  In  her 
rough-cut  features  there  was  an  element  of  lurking  malevolence. 

After  a  few  minutes  of  painful  stillness  she  walked  up  to  Daniel, 
and  plucked  him  by  the  coat-sleeve:  "Eh,  you  don't  know  who  I 
am?"  she  asked,  and  her  squinty  eyes  shone  on  him  with  enig- 
matic savagery:  "I  am  Philippina;  you  know,  Philippina  Schimmel- 
weis." 

Daniel  stepped  back  from  her:  "Well,  what  of  it?"  he  asked, 
wrinkling  his  brow. 

She  followed  him,  took  him  by  the  coat-sleeve  again,  and  led 
him  over  into  one  corner:  "Listen,  Daniel,"  she  stammered,  "my 
father — he  must  give  you  all  the  money  you  need.  For  years  ago 
your  father  gave  him  all  the  money  he  had,  and  told  him  to  keep 
it  for  you.  Do  you  understand?  I  happened  to  hear  about  it 
one  time  when  my  father  was  talking  about  it  to  my  mother.  It 
was  a  good  seven  years  ago,  but  I  made  a  note  of  it.  My  father 
spent  the  money  on  himself;  he  thinks  he  can  keep  it.  Go  to  him, 
and  tell  him  what  you  want;  tell  him  how  much  you  want,  and 
then  go  help  these  people  here.  But  you  must  not  give  me  away; 
if  you  do  they'll  kill  me.  Do  you  understand?  You  won't  say 
a  word  about  it,  will  you?" 

"Is  that  true?"  Daniel  managed  to  say  in  reply,  as  a  feeling  of 
unspeakable  anger  struggled  with  one  of  indescribable  disgust. 

"It  is  true,  Daniel,  every  word  of  it;  'pon  my  soul  and  honour," 
replied  Philippina;  "just  go,  and  you'll  see  that  I  have  told  TOU 
the  truth." 

During  the  conversation  of  the  two,  of  which  she  could  hardly 
hear  a  single  syllable,  Eleanore  never  took  her  eyes  off  them. 


Since  the  day  Philippina  had  made  her  little  brother  Markus  a 
cripple  for  life,  she  had  been  an  outcast  in  the  home  of  her  parents. 


igo  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

To  be  sure,  she  had  had  no  great  abundance  of  kindness  and 
cheerfulness  before  the  accident  took  place.  But  since  that  time 
the  barbarous  castigation  of  her  father  had  beclouded  and  be- 
smirched her  very  soul.  From  her  twelfth  year  on,  her  mind  was 
ruled  exclusively  by  hate. 

Hatred  aroused  her;  it  gave  birth  to  thoughts  and  plans  in  her; 
it  endowed  her  with  strength  of  will  and  audacity;  and  it  matured 
her  before  her  time. 

She  hated  her  father,  her  mother,  her  brothers. 

She  hated  the  house  with  all  its  rooms;  she  hated  the  bed  in 
which  she  slept,  the  table  at  which  she  ate.  She  hated  the  people 
who  came  to  see  her  parents,  the  customers  who  came  into  the  shop, 
the  loafers  who  gathered  about  the  window,  the  tall  lanky 
Zwanziger,  the  books  and  the  magazines. 

But  the  day  she  overheard  her  father  and  mother  talking  about 
that  money,  a  second  power  had  joined  the  ranks  of  hate  in  her 
benighted,  abandoned  soul.  With  her  brain  on  fire  she  stood 
behind  the  door,  and  heard  that  she  was  to  be  married  to  Daniel. 
This  remark  had  filled  the  then  thirteen-year-old  girl  with  all  the 
savage  instincts  of  a  bound  and  fettered  woman,  with  all  the 
crabbedness  of  an  unimaginative  person  of  her  standing. 

In  her  father's  remark  she  did  not  see  merely  a  more  or  less 
carefully  outlined  plan;  she  heard  a  message  from  Fate  itself;  and 
from  that  time  on  she  lived  with  an  idea  that  brought  light  and 
purpose  into  her  daily  existence. 

Shortly  after  his  arrival  in  Nuremberg,  she  saw  Daniel  for  the 
first  time  as  he  was  standing  by  a  booth  in  the  market  place  on 
Schiitt  Island.  Her  father  had  pointed  him  out  to  her.  She 
knew  that  he  wished  to  become  a  musician ;  this  made  no  special 
impression  on  her.  She  knew  that  he  was  having  a  hard  time  of 
it;  this  filled  her  neither  with  sympathy  nor  regret.  When  she 
later  on  saw  him  in  the  concert  hall,  he  was  already  her  promised 
spouse;  he  belonged  to  her.  To  capture  him,  to  get  him  into  her 
power,  it  made  no  difference  how,  was  her  unchanging  aspiration, 
in  which  there  was  a  bizarre  mixture  of  bestiality  and  insanity. 

The  thieving,  which  she  decided  upon  at  once  and  practised 
with  perfect  regularity,  netted  her  in  the  course  of  time  a  hand- 
some sum.  She  did  not  become  bolder  and  bolder  as  she  continued 
her  evil  practices,  but,  unlike  thieves  generally,  she  grew  to  be 
more  and  more  cautious.  She  acquired  in  time  remarkable  skill 
at  showing  an  outwardly  honest  face.  Indeed  she  became  such  an 
adept  at  dissimulation  that  the  suspicion  of  even  Jason  Philip, 


THE  GLASS  CASE  BREAKS  191 

aroused  as  it  had  been  during  the  course  of  a  careful  investigation, 
was  dispelled  by  her  behaviour. 

Her  plan  was  to  gain  a  goodly  measure  of  independence  through 
the  money  she  had  stolen.  For  she  always  felt  convinced  that  the 
day  would  come  when  her  parents  would  debar  her  from  their 
home.  She  was  convinced  that  her  father  and  mother  were  merely 
waiting  for  some  plausible  excuse  to  rid  themselves  of  her  for 
good  and  all. 

Moreover,  she  had  two  pronounced  passions:  one  for  candy  and 
one  for  flashy  ribbons. 

The  candy  she  always  bought  in  the  evening.  She  would  slip 
into  the  shop  of  Herr  Degen,  and,  with  her  greedy  eyes  opened 
as  wide  as  possible,  but  twenty  pfennigs'  worth  of  sweets,  at  which 
she  would  nibble  until  she  went  to  bed. 

The  ribbons  she  sewed  together  into  sashes,  which  she  wore  on 
her  hat  or  around  her  neck  or  on  her  dress.  The  gaudier  the 
colour  the  better  she  liked  it.  If  her  mother  asked  her  where 
she  got  the  ribbons  she  was  forced  to  lie.  Although  she  had  no 
girl  friends,  as  a  matter  of  fact  no  friends  of  any  kind,  she  would 
say  that  this  or  that  girl  had  given  them  to  her.  When  "her  wealth 
became  too  conspicuous,  she  would  leave  the  house  and  not  tie  her 
sashes  about  her  until  she  had  reached  some  unlighted  gateway 
or  dark  corner. 

She  never  dared  go  to  the  attic  more  than  once  a  week;  she  did 
this  when  her  brothers  were  at  school  and  her  parents  in  the  shop. 
The  fear  lest  some  one  find  her  out  and  take  her  stolen  riches  from 
her  made  her  more  and  more  uneasy,  lending  to  her  face  an  expres- 
sion of  virulent  distrust. 

She  would  go  up  the  thirteen  steps  from  the  landing  to  the 
attic  with  trembling  feet.  The  fact  that  there  were  exactly  thir- 
teen was  the  first  thing  that  awakened  her  superstition.  As  the 
months  crept  on,  she  resigned  to  this  superstition  with  the  abandon 
of  an  inveterate  voluptuary.  If  she  chanced  to  put  her  left  foot 
first  on  the  bottom  step  and  not  to  notice  it  until  she  was  half  way 
up,  she  would  turn  around,  come  down,  and  relinquish  the  pleasure 
of  seeing  her  treasures  for  the  rest  of  that  week. 

She  was  afraid  of  ghosts,  witches,  and  magicians;  if  a  cat  ran 
across  the  street  in  front  of  her,  she  turned  as  white  as  chalk. 

Theresa  did  not  keep  a  maid;  Philippina  helped  in  the  kitchen; 
this  ruined  her  complexion,  and  made  her  skin  rough  and  horny. 
Frequently  she  got  out  of  washing  dishes  by  simply  running  away. 
On  these  occasions  Theresa  would  create  such  an  uproar  that 


iga  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

the  neighbours  would  come  to  the  window  and  look  out.  Philip- 
pina  avenged  herself  by  purposely  ruining  the  sheets,  towels,  and 
shirts  that  lay  in  the  clothes  basket.  When  in  this  mood  and  at 
this  business,  she  made  use  of  a  regular  oath  that  she  herself  had 
formulated:  it  consisted  of  sentences  that  sounded  most  impressive, 
though  they  had  no  meaning. 

She  cherished  the  odd  delusion  that  it  lay  in  her  power  to  bring 
misfortune  to  other  people.  The  time  Jason  Philip  complained 
of  poor  business  she  felt  an  infernal  sense  of  satisfaction.  His 
change  of  political  views  had  driven  away  his  old  customers,  and 
the  new  ones  'had  no  confidence  in  him.  He  had  to  go  in  for  the 
publication  of  dubious  works,  if  he  wished  to  do  any  business  at 
all.  The  result  of  this  was  that  when  people  passed  by  the  Schim- 
melweis  bookshop,  they  stopped  before  the  window,  looked  at  his 
latest  output,  and  smiled  contemptuously.  The  workman's  insur- 
ance no  longer  paid  as  it  used  to,  for  the  credit  of  the  Prudentia 
and  its  agents  had  suffered  a  violent  setback. 

The  rise  and  fall  in  bourgeois  life  follows  a  well  established 
law.  In  a  single  day  the  honesty  and  diligence  of  one  man,  the 
tricks  and  frauds  of  another,  grow  stale,  antiquated.  Thus  Jordan's 
affairs  started  on  the  down  grade,  and  Jason  Philip's  likewise. 

Philippina  ascribed  their  failure  to  the  quiet  influence  of  her 
destructive  work.  Every  bit  of  misfortune  in  the  life  of  her 
father  loosened  by  that  much  the  chain  that  prevented  her  from 
complete  freedom  of  movement.  In  her  most  infamous  hours  she 
would  dream  of  the  hunger  and  distress,  bankruptcy  and  despair 
of  her  people.  Once  this  state  of  affairs  had  been  realised,  she 
would  no  longer  have  to  play  the  role  of  Cinderella;  ?he  would 
no  longer  have  to  be  the  first  one  up  in  the  morning;  she  would 
no  longer  have  to  chop  wood,  and  polish  her  brothers'  boots:  she 
would  have  a  fair  field  and  no  favours  in  her  campaign  to  capture 
Daniel. 


IX 

At  times  she  thought  she  could  simply  go  to  him  and  stay  with 
him.  At  times  she  felt  that  he  would  come  and  get  her.  One 
thing  or  the  other  had  to  take  place,  she  thought. 

One  Sunday  afternoon — it  chanced  to  be  her  eighteenth  birth- 
day— a  junior  agent  of  Jason  Philip,  a  fellow  by  the  name  of 
Pfefferkorn,  came  to  the  house,  and  in  the  course  of  the  conversa- 
tion remarked  rather  casually  that  the  elder  of  the  Jordan  sisters 


THE  GLASS  CASE  BREAKS  193 

was  engaged  to  the  musician  Nothafft,  that  the  engagement  had 
been  kept  secret  for  a  while,  but  that  the  wedding  was  to  take 
place  in  the  immediate  future. 

"By  the  way,  I  hear  that  the  musician  is  your  nephew,"  said 
Pfefferkorn  at  the  close  of  his  report. 

Jason  Philip  cast  a  gloomy  look  into  space,  while  Theresa,  then 
sipping  her  chicory  coffee,  set  her  cup  on  the  table,  and  looked  at 
the  man  with  scornful  contempt. 

Philippina  broke  out  in  a  laughter  that  went  through  them  like 
a  knife.  Then  she  ran  from  the  room,  and  banged  the  door 
behind  her.  "She  seems  a  bit  deranged,"  murmured  Jason  Philip 
angrily. 

Then  came  that  June  night  on  which  she  did  not  come  home  at 
all.  Jason  Philip  raged  and  howled  when  she  returned  the  next 
morning;  but  she  was  silent.  He  locked  her  up  in  the  cellar  for 
sixteen  hours;  but  she  was  silent. 

After  this  she  did  not  leave  the  house  for  months  at  a  time; 
she  did  not  wash  or  comb  her  hair;  she  sat  crouched  up  in  the 
kitchen  with  her  long,  dishevelled,  unwashed  hair  falling  in  loose 
locks  down  over  her  neck  and  shoulders. 

A  feeling  of  consuming  vengeance  seethed  in  her  heart;  the 
patience  she  was  forced  to  practise,  much  against  her  will,  petrified 
in  time  into  a  mien  of  hypocritic  sottishness. 

Suddenly  she  took  to  dressing  up  again  and  sauntering  through 
the  streets  in  the  afternoon.  Her  loud  ribbons  awakened  the 
mocking  laughter  of  young  and  old. 

She  had  learned  that  Eleanore  Jordan  was  attending  the  lectures 
in  the  Cultural  Club.  She  went  too;  she  always  crowded  up  close 
to  Eleanore,  but  she  could  not  attract  her  attention.  One  time 
she  sat  right  next  to  Eleanore.  A  strolling  pastor  delivered  a 
lecture  on  cremation.  Philippina  took  out  her  handkerchief,  and 
pressed  it  to  her  eyes  as  though  she  were  weeping.  Eleanore, 
somewhat  concerned,  turned  to  her,  and  asked  her  what  was  the 
matter.  She  said  that  it  was  all  so  sad  what  the  old  gentleman  was 
saying.  Eleanore  was  surprised,  for  nothing  the  speaker  had  said 
was  sad  or  in  any  way  likely  to  bring  tears  to  the  eyes  of  his 
auditors. 

At  the  end  of  the  lecture  she  left  the  hall  with  Eleanore.  When 
the  ugly,  disagreeable  creature  told  her  of  the  wretchedness  of  her 
life,  how  she  was  abused  by  her  parents  and  brothers,  and  that 
there  was  not  a  soul  in  the  world  who  cared  for  her,  Eleanore  was 
moved.  The  fact  that  Philippina  was  Daniel's  blood  cousin  made 


194  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

her  forget  the  aversion  she  felt,  and  drew  from  her  a  promise  to 
go  walking  with  her  on  certain  days. 

Eleanore  kept  her  promise.  She  was  not  in  the  least  disconcerted 
by  the  queer  looks  cast  at  her  by  the  people  they  met.  With  perfect 
composure  she  walked  along  by  the  side  of  this  strapping,  quackish 
young  woman  dressed  in  the  oddest  garments  known  to  the  art 
of  dress-making.  At  first  they  strolled  in  broad  daylight  through 
the  park  adjoining  the  city  moat.  Later  Eleanore  arranged  to 
have  the  walks,  which  were  to  take  place  two  or  three  times  a 
month,  postponed  until  after  sunset. 

This  was  quite  agreeable  to  Philippina.  She  threw  out  a  hint 
every  now  and  then  that  there  was  a  mysterious  feud  between  the 
Schimmelweis  family  and  the  Nothaffts,  and  implored  Eleanore 
never  to  let  Daniel  know  that  she  was  taking  these  walks  with  her. 
It  was  painful  to  Eleanore  to  have  Philippina  make  such  requests 
of  her.  The  lurking  manner  in  which  she  would  turn  the  con- 
versation to  the  affairs  of  Daniel  and  Gertrude  had  an  element  of 
offensive  intrusiveness  in  it.  She  wanted  to  know  first  this,  then 
that.  She  even  had  the  impudence  to  ask  about  Gertrude's  dowry; 
and  finally  she  requested  that  Eleanore  bring  her  sister  along  some 
time  when  they  went  walking. 

Eleanore  came  to  have  a  feeling  of  horror  at  the  sight  or  thought 
of  Philippina;  she  was  dismayed  too  when,  despite  the  darkness, 
she  noticed  the  shrewish  look  of  incorrigible  wickedness  in  Philip- 
pina's  face.  An  ineluctable  voice  put  her  on  her  guard.  In  so  far 
as  she  could  do  it  without  grievously  offending  Philippina,  she 
withdrew  from  further  association  with  her.  And  even  if  she  had 
not  promised  her  absolute  silence,  a  feeling  half  of  fear  and  half 
of  shame  would  have  prevented  her  from  ever  mentioning  Philip- 
pina's  name  in  Daniel's  presence. 

She  never  once  suspected  that  Philippina  was  spying  on  her. 
Philippina  soon  found  out  just  when,  how  often,  and  where  Daniel 
and  Eleanore  met;  and  wherever  they  went,  she  followed  at  a  safe 
distance  behind  them.  Why  she  did  this  she  really  did  not  know; 
something  forced  her  to  do  it. 

What  she  had  succeeded  in  doing  with  Eleanore  she  now  wished 
to  do  with  Gertrude.  She  would  bob  up  all  of  a  sudden  in  the 
butcher  shop,  at  the  vegetable  market,  in  the  dairy,  anywhere,  stare 
at  Gertrude,  act  as  though  she  were  intensely  interested  in  some- 
thing, and  make  some  such  remarks  as:  "Lord,  but  beans  are  dear 
this  year";  or  "That  is  a  nasty  wind,  it  is  enough  to  give  you 
the  colic."  But  Gertrude  was  far  too  lost  to  the  world  and  much 


THE  GLASS  CASE  BREAKS  195 

too  sensitive  about   coming  in   contact  with   strangers  to   pay  any 
attention  to  her  awkward  attempts  at  approach. 

"Just  wait,"  thought  Philippina,  enraged,  "the  penalty  of  your 
arrogance  will  some  day  descend  upon  your  head." 


On  that  Monday  so  fatal  for  the  Jordan  family,  Philippina 
had  another  violent  quarrel  with  her  mother.  Theresa  was  still 
shrieking,  when  Jason  Philip 'came  up  from  the  shop  to  know  what 
could  be  wrong. 

"Don't  ask,"  cried  Theresa  at  the  top  of  her  shrill  voice,  "go 
teach  your  daughter  some  manners.  The  wench  is  going  to  end 
up  in  jail;  that's  what  I  prophesy." 

Philippina  made  a  wry  face.  Jason  Philip,  however,  was  little 
inclined  to  play  the  role  of  an  avenging  power:  he  had  something 
new  on  the  string;  his  face  was  beaming. 

"I  met  Hornbusch,"  he  said,  turning  to  Theresa,  "you  know 
him,  firm  of  Hornbusch  heirs,  bloody  rich  they  are,  and  the  man 
tells  me  that  young  Jordan  has  embezzled  some  money  from  the 
Prudentia  and  left  the  country.  I  went  at  once  to  the  Prudentia, 
and  Zittel  told  me  the  whole  story,  just  as  I  had  heard  it.  It  is 
almost  four  thousand  marks!  Jordan  has  been  requested  to  make 
good  the  deficit;  but  he  hasn't  a  penny  to  his  name  and  is  in  a 
mighty  tight  place,  for  Diruf  is  threatening  to  send  him  to  jail. 
You  know,  Diruf  is  hard-boiled  in  matters  of  this  kind.  What  do 
you  think  of  that?" 

Theresa  wrapped  her  hands  in  her  apron,  and  looked  at  Jason 
Philip  out  of  the  corner  of  her  eye.  She  guessed  at  once  the 
cause  of  his  joy,  and  hung  her  head  in  silence. 

Jason  Philip  smirked  to  himself.  Leaning  up  against  the  Dutch 
tiles  of  the  stove,  he  began  to  whistle  in  a  happy-go-lucky  mood. 
It  was  the  "Marseillaise."  He  whistled  it  partly  out  of  forget- 
fulness  and  partly  from  force  of  habit. 

He  had  not  noticed  how  Philippina  had  listened  to  every  syllable 
that  fell  from  his  lips;  how  she  was  holding  her  breath;  that  her 
features  were  lighted  up  from  within  by  a  terrible  flame  of  fire. 
He  did  notice,  however,  that  she  got  up  at  the  close  of  his  remarks 
and  left  the  room  with  rustling  steps. 

Five  minutes  later  she  was  standing  before  Jordan's  house.  She 
sent  a  small  boy  in  with  the  request  that  Friiulein  Eleanorc  come 
down  at  once.  The  boy  came  back,  and  said  that  Friiulein  Elcanore 


196  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

was  not  at  home.      She  took  her  position  by  the   front  gate,   and 
waited. 


Driven  by  the  torment  of  her  soul,  Eleanore  had  gone  to  Martha 
Rubsam's  only  to  hear  that  her  father  had  been  there  three  hours 
earlier.  From  the  confused  and  embarrassed  conduct  of  her  friend 
she  learned  that  her  father  had  made  a  request  of  Judge  Riibsam, 
and  a  fruitless  one  at  that. 

Then  she  stood  for  a  while  on  one  of  the  leading  streets,  and 
stared  in  bewilderment  at  the  throngs  of  people  surging  by.  It 
was  all  so  cruelly  real. 

She  thought  of  whom  she  might  go  to  next.  A  wave  of  purple 
flashed  across  her  face  as  she  thought  of  Eberhard.  Involuntarily  she 
made  a  passionate,  deprecating  gesture,  as  if  she  were  saying:  No, 
no,  not  to  him!  The  first  ray  of  this  hope  was  also  the  last.  Her 
conscience  struck  her;  but  she  was  helpless.  Here  was  a  feeling 
impervious  to  reason ;  armed  ten  times  over  against  encouragement. 
Anyhow,  he  was  not  at  home.  She  thought  of  this  with  a  sigh  of 
relief. 

Would  Daniel  go  to  the  Baroness?  No;  that  could  not  be 
thought  of  for  a  minute. 

She  could  no  longer  endure  the  city  nor  the  people  in  it.  She 
walked  through  the  park  out  into  the  country.  She  could  not  stand 
the  sight  of  the  sky  or  the  distant  views;  she  turned  around.  She 
came  back  to  The  Full,  entered  the  Carovius  house,  and  rang  Frau 
Benda's  bell.  She  knew  the  old  lady  was  away,  and  yet,  as  if 
quite  beside  herself,  she  rang  four  times.  If  Benda  would  only 
come;  if  the  good  friend  were  only  sitting  in  his  room  and  could 
come  to  the  door. 

But  there  was  not  a  stir.  From  the  first  floor  the  sounds  of  a 
piano  floated  out  the  window;  it  was  being  played  in  full  chords. 
Down  in  the  court  Cresar  was  howling. 

She  started  back  home  with  beating  heart.  At  the  front  gate 
ihe  saw  Philippina. 

"I  have  heard  all  about  your  misfortune,"  said  Philippina  in 
her  shrill  voice.  "Nobody  can  help  you  but  me." 

"You?  You  can  help?"  stammered  Eleanore.  The  whole 
square  began  to  move,  it  seemed,  before  her. 

"Word  of  honour — I  can.  I  must  simply  have  a  talk  with  Daniel 
first.  Let's  lose  no  time.  Is  he  upstairs?" 


THE  GLASS  CASE  BREAKS  197 

"I  think  he  is.     If  not,  I  will  get  him. 
"Let's  go  up,  then." 
They  went  up  the  stairs. 


XII 

Jason  Philip  had  been  invited  to  a  sociable  evening  in  the 
Shufflers'  Club.  He  was  now  enjoying  his  siesta  after  his  banquet 
by  reading  an  editorial  in  the  Kurier.  One  of  Bismarck's  addresses 
had  been  so  humorously  commented  on  that  every  now  and  then 
Jason  Philip  emitted  a  malevolent  snarl  of  applause. 

He  had  brought  a  lemon  along  home  with  him;  it  was  lying  on 
a  plate  before  him,  sliced  and  covered  with  sugar.  From  time  to 
time  he  would  reach  over,  take  a  piece  and  stick  it  in  his  mouth. 
He  smacked  his  tongue  with  the  display  of  much  ceremony  of  his 
kind,  and  licked  his  lips  after  swallowing  a  piece.  His  two  sons 
gaped  at  his  hand  with  greedy  eyes  and  likewise  licked  their 
lips. 

Willibald  was  groaning  over  an  algebraic  equation.  In  his  pale, 
pimpled  face  were  traces  of  incapability  and  bad  humour.  Markus, 
owing  to  his  physical  defect,  was  not  allowed  to  study  by  artificial 
light.  He  helped  his  mother  shell  the  peas,  and  in  order  to  make 
her  angry  at  Philippina,  kept  making  mean  remarks  about  her  stay- 
ing out  so  long. 

Just  as  the  last  piece  of  the  lemon  disappeared  behind  Jason 
Philip's  moustache,  the  door  bell  rang. 

"There  is  a  man  out  there,"  said  Markus,  who  had  gone  to  the 
door  and  was  now  standing  on  the  threshold,  stupidly  staring  with 
his  one  remaining  eye. 

Jason  Philip  stretched  his  neck.  Then  he  got  up.  He  had 
recognised  Daniel  standing  in  the  half-lighted  hall. 

"I  have  something  to  say  to  you,"  said  Daniel,  as  he  entered  the 
room.  His  eyes  gazed  on  the  walls  and  at  the  few  cheap,  ugly, 
banal  objects  that  hung  on  them:  a  newspaper-holder  with  embroid- 
ered ribbons;  a  corner  table  on  which  stood  a  beer  mug  representing 
the  fat  body  of  a  monk;  an  old  chromic  print  showing  a  volunteer 
taking  leave  of  his  big  family  as  he  starts  for  the  front.  These 
things  appealed  to  Daniel  somewhat  as  an  irrational  dream.  Then, 
taking  a  deep  breath,  he  fixed  his  eyes  on  Jason  Philip.  In  his 
mind's  eve  he  looked  back  over  many  years;  he  saw  himself  stand- 
ing at  the  fountain  in  F.schenbarh.  Round  about  him  glistened  the 
stones  and  cross  beams  of  the  houses.  Jason  Philip  was  hurrying 


ig8  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

by  at  a  timid  distance.  There  was  bitterness  in  his  face:  he  seemed 
to  be  fleeing  from  the  world,  the  sun,  men,  and  music. 

"I  have  something  to  say  to  you,"  he  repeated. 

Theresa  felt  that  the  worst  of  her  forebodings  were  about  to  be 
fulfilled.  With  trembling  knees  she  arose.  She  did  not  dare 
turn  her  eyes  toward  the  place  in  the  room  where  Daniel  was 
standing.  She  did  not  see,  she  merely  sensed  Jason  Philip 'as 
he  beckoned  to  her  and  his  sons  to  leave  the  room.  She  took 
Markus  by  the  hand  and  Willibald  by  the  coat-sleeve,  and  marched 
out  between  the  two. 

"What's  the  news?"  asked  Jason  Philip,  as  he  crossed  his  arms 
and  looked  at  the  pile  of  beans  on  the  table.  "You  have  a — what 
shall  I  say? — a  very  impulsive  way  about  you.  It  is  a  way  that 
reminds  me  of  the  fact  that  we  have  a  law  in  this  country  against 
disturbing  the  peace  of  a  private  family.  Your  stocks  must  have 
gone  to  the  very  top  of  the  market  recently.  Well,  tell  me,  what 
do  you  want? " 

He  cleared  his  throat,  and  beat  a  tattoo  on  the  elbows  of  his 
crossed  arms  with  his  fingers. 

Daniel  felt  that  his  peace  was  leaving  him;  his  own  arm  seemed 
to  him  like  a  shot-gun;  it  itched.  But  thus  far  he  could  not  say 
a  thing.  The  question  he  had  in  mind  to  put  to  Jason  Philip  was 
of  such  tremendous  import  that  he  could  not  suppress  his  fear  that 
he  might  make  a  mistake  or  become  too  hasty. 

"Where  is  the  money  my  father  gave  you?"  came  the  words  at 
last,  rolling  from  his  lips  in  a  tone  of  muffled  sullenness. 

The  colour  left  Jason  Philip's  face;  his  arms  fell  down  by 
his  side. 

"The  money?  Where  it's  gone  to?  That  your  father — ?" 
He  stuttered  in  confusion.  He  wanted  to  gain  time;  he  wanted 
to  think  over  very  carefully  what  he  should  say  and  what  he  could 
conceal.  He  cast  one  glance  at  Daniel,  and  saw  that  it  was  not 
possible  to  expect  mercy  from  him.  He  was  afraid  of  Daniel's 
bold,  lean,  sinewy  face. 

He  nearly  burst  with  anger  at  the  thought  that  this  young  man, 
for  whom  he,  Jason  Philip,  was  once  the  highest  authority,  should 
have  the  unmitigated  audacity  to  call  him  to  account.  In  this 
whole  situation  he  pictured  himself  as  the  immaculate  man  of 
honour  that  he  wished  he  was  ami  thought  he  was  in  the  eyes  of 
his  fellow  citizens.  At  the  same  time  he  was  nearly  stifled  with 
fear  lest  he  lose  the  money  which  he  had  long  since  accustomed 
himself  to  regard  as  his  own,  with  which  he  had  worked  and  specu- 


THE  GLASS  CASE  BREAKS  199 

lated,  and  which  by  this  time  was  as  much  a  part  of  his  very 
being  as  his  own  house,  his  business,  his  projects.  He  buried  his 
hands  in  his  pockets  and  snorted.  His  cowardly  dread  of  the  con- 
sequences of  fraud  forced  him  into  a  half  confession  of  fraud, 
but  in  his  words  lay  the  feverish  pettifogging  of  the  frenzied 
financier  who  fights  for  Mammon  even  unto  raging  and  despair. 

"The  money  is  here;  of  course  it  is.  Where  did  you  think  it 
was?  My  books  will  show  exactly  how  much  of  it  has  found  its 
way  over  to  Eschenbach  in  the  shape  of  interest  and  loans.  My 
books  are  open  to  inspection;  the  accounts  have  been  kept  right 
up  to  this  very  day.  I  have  made  considerable  progress  in  life.  A 
man  who  has  lived  as  I  have  lived  does  not  need  to  fear  a  living 
soul.  Do  you  imagine  for  a  minute  that  Jason  Philip  Schimmel- 
weis  can  be  frightened  by  a  little  thing  like  this?  No,  no,  it 
will  take  more  of  a  man  than  you  to  do  that.  Who  are  you 
anyhow?  What  office  do  you  hold?  What  authority  have  you? 
With  what  right  do  you  come  rushing  into  the  four  walls  of  my 
home?  Do  you  perhaps  imagine  that  your  artistic  skill  invests  you 
with  special  privileges?  I  don't  give  a  tinker's  damn  for  your  art. 
The  whole  rubbish  is  hardly  worth  spitting  on.  Music?  Idiocy. 
Who  needs  it?  Any  man  with  the  least  vestige  of  self-respect 
never  has  anything  to  do  with  music  except  on  holidays  and  when 
the  day's  work  is  done.  No,  no,  you  can't  impress  me  with  your 
music.  You're  not  quite  sane!  And  if  you  think  that  you  are 
going  to  get  any  money  out  of  me,  you  are  making  the  mistake 
of  your  life.  It  is  to  laugh.  If  a  man  wants  money  from  me, 
he  has  to  come  to  me  at  least  with  a  decent  hair-cut  and  show 
me  at  least  a  little  respect.  He  can't  come  running  up  like  a  kid 
on  the  street  who  says:  'Mumma,  gif  me  a  shcnt;  I  want  to  buy 
some  tandy.'  No,  no,  son,  you  can't  get  anything  out  of  me 
that  way." 

The  smile  that  appeared  on  Daniel's  face  filled  Jason  Philip  with 
mortal  terror.  He  stopped  his  talk  with  incriminating  suddenness. 
He  decided  to  hold  in  and  to  promise  Daniel  a  small  payment. 
He  hoped  that  by  handing  over  a  few  hundred  marks  he  could 
assure  himself  the  desired  peace  of  mind. 

But  Daniel  never  felt  so  certain  of  himself  in  his  life.  He 
thought  of  the  hardships  he  had  had  to  endure,  and  his  heart 
seemed  as  if  it  were  on  fire.  At  the  same  time  he  was  ashamed  of 
this  man  and  disgusted  with  him. 

He  said  quietly  and  firmly:  "I  must  have  three  thousand  seven 
hundred  marks  by  ten  o'clock  to-morrow  morning.  It  is  a  question 


200  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

of  saving  an  honourable  and  upright  family  from  ruin.  If  this 
sum  is  handed  over  to1  me  promptly,  I  will  waive  all  rights  to  the 
balance  that  is  due  me,  in  writing.  The  receipt  will  be  filled  out 
ready  for  delivery  in  my  house.  If  the  money  is  not  in  my 
hands  by  the  stipulated  time,  we  will  meet  each  other  in  another 
place  and  in  the  presence  of  people  who  will  impress  you." 

He  turned  to  go. 

Jason  Philip's  mouth  opened  wide,  and  he  pressed  his  fist  to  the 
hole  made  thereby.  "Three  thousand  seven  hundred  marks?1'  he 
roared.  "The  man  is  crazy.  Completely  crazy  is  the  man.  Man, 
man,  you're  crazy,"  he  cried  in  order  to  get  Daniel  to  stop.  "Are 
you  crazy,  man?  Do  you  want  to  ruin  me?  Don't  you  hear, 
you  damned  man?" 

Daniel  looked  at  Jason  Philip  with  a  shudder.  The  door  to 
the  adjoining  room  sprang  open,  and  Theresa  rushed  in.  Her  face 
was  ashen  pale;  there  were  just  two  little  round  red  spots  on  her 
cheek  bones.  "You  are  going  to  get  that  money,  Daniel,"  she 
howled  hysterically,  "or  I  am  going  to  jump  into  the  Pegnitz. 
I'll  jump  into  the  Pegnitz  and  drown  myself." 

"Woman,  you  .  .  ."  he  gnashed  his  teeth,  and  seized  her  by  the 
shoulder. 

She  sank  down  on  a  chair,  and,  seizing  her  hair,  continued: 
"He  is  everywhere,  and  wherever  he  is,  our  dear  Gottfried,  he  is 
looking  at  me.  He  stands  before  the  clothes  press,  at  the  cup- 
board, by  my  bedside,  nods,  exhorts,  raises  his  finger,  finds  no 
peace  in  his  grave,  and  does  not  let  me  sleep;  he  has  not  let  me 
sleep  all  these  years." 

"Now  listen,  you  had  better  think  of  your  children,"  snapped 
Jason  Philip. 

Theresa  let  her  hands  fall  in  her  lap,  and  looked  down  at  the 
floor:  "All  that  nice  money,  that  nice  money,"  she  cried.  Then 
again,  this  time  with  a  face  distorted  beyond  easy  recognition  and 
at  the  top  of  her  voice:  "But  you'll  get  it,  Daniel;  I'll  see  to  it 
that  you  get  it:  I'll  bring  it  to  you  myself."  Then  again,  in  a 
gentle  voice  of  acute  lamentation:  "All  that  nice  money." 

Daniel  was  almost  convulsed.  It  seemed  to  him  as  if  he  had 
never  rightly  understood  the  word  money  before,  as  if  the  meaning 
of  money  had  never  been  made  clear  to  him  until  he  heard 
Theresa  say  it. 

"To-morrow  morning  at  ten  o'clock,"  he  said. 

Theresa  nodded  her  head  in  silence,  and  raised  her  hands  with 
outstretched  fingers  as  if  to  protect  herself  from  Jason  Philip. 


THE  GLASS  CASE  BREAKS  201 

Willibald  and  Markus  had  crept  under  the  door.  The  gate  must 
not  have  been  closed,  for  just  then  Philippina  came  in.  She  had 
come  over  with  Daniel,  but  had  remained  outside  on  the  street. 
She  could  not  wait  any  longer;  she  was  too  anxious  to  see  the 
consequences  of  her  betrayal. 

She  looked  around  with  affected  embarrassment.  Was  it  merely 
the  sight  of  her  that  aroused  Jason  Philip's  wrath?  Was  it  the 
half-cowardly,  half-cynical  smile  that  played  around  her  lips?  Or 
was  it  the  cumulative  effect  of  blind  anger,  long  pent  up  and  eager 
to  be  discharged,  that  made  Jason  Philip  act  as  he  did?  Or  did 
he  have  a  vague  suspicion  of  what  Philippina  had  done?  Suffice 
it  to  say,  he  leapt  up  to  her  and  struck  her  in  the  face  with 
his  fist. 

She  never  moved  a  muscle. 

Indignant  at  the  rudeness  of  his  cor.duct,  Daniel  stepped  between 
Jason  Philip  and  his  daughter.  But  the  venomous  scorn  in  the 
girl's  eyes  stifled  his  sympathy;  he  turned  to  the  door,  and  went 
away  in  silence. 

"All  that  nice  money,"  murmured  Theresa. 

XIII 

When  Daniel  told  the  Jordans  that  the  money  would  be  there 
the  next  morning,  Jordan  looked  at  him  first  unbelievingly,  and 
then  wept  like  a  child. 

Eleanore  reached  Daniel  both  her  hands  without  saying  a  word. 
Gertrude,  who  was  lying  on  the  sofa,  straightened  up,  smiled 
gently,  and  then  lay  down  again.  Daniel  asked  her  what  was  the 
matter.  Eleanore  answered  for  her,  saying  that  she  had  not  felt 
well  since  some  time  in  the  afternoon.  "She  must  go  to  bed,  she 
is  tired,"  added  Eleanore. 

"Well,  come  then,"  said  Daniel,  and  helped  Gertrude  to  get 
up.  But  her  legs  were  without  strength;  she  could  not  walk.  She 
looked  first  at  Daniel  and  then  at  Eleanore;  she  was  plainly  worried 
about  something. 

"You  won't  care,  will  you,  Father,  if  I  go  home  with  them?" 
asked  Eleanore  in  a  tone  of  flattery. 

"No,  go,  child,"  said  Jordan,  "it  will  do  me  good  to  be  alone 
for  a  few  minutes." 

Daniel  and  Eleanore  took  Gertrude  between  them.  At  the  sec- 
ond landing  in  their  apartment,  Daniel  took  Gertrude  in  his 
arms,  and  carried  her  into  the  bedroom.  She  did  not  want  him 


202  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

to  help  her  take  off  her  clothes;  she  sent  him  out  of  the  .room. 
A  cup  of  warm  milk  was  all  she  said  she  wanted. 

"There  is  no  milk  there,"  said  Eleanore  to  Daniel,  as  she 
entered  the  living  room.  He  stopped  suddenly,  and  looked  at  her 
as  if  he  had  awakened  from  a  fleeting  dream:  "I'll  run  down  to 
Tetzel  Street  and  get  a  half  a  litre,"  said  Eleanore.  "I'll  leave 
the  hall  door  open,  so  that  Gertrude  will  not  be  frightened  whei. 
I  come  in." 

She  had  already  hastened  out;  but  all  of  a  sudden  she  turned 
around,  and  said  with  joyful  gratitude,  her  blue  eyes  swimming 
in  the  tears  of  a  full  soul:  "You  dear  man." 

His  face  took  on  a  scowl. 

There  was  a  fearful  regularity  in  his  walking  back  and  forth. 
The  chains  of  the  hanging  lamp  shook.  The  flame  sent  forth  a 
thin  column  of  smoke;  he  did  not  notice  it.  "How  long  will  she 
be  gone?"  he  thought  in  his  unconscious,  drunken  impatience. 
He  felt  terribly  deserted. 

He  stepped  out  into  the  hall,  and  listened.  There  hovered 
before  him  in  the  darkness  the  face  of  Philippina.  She  showed 
the  same  scornful  immobility  that  she  showed  when  her  father 
struck  her  in  the  face.  He  stepped  to  the  railing,  and  sat  down 
on  the  top  step;  a  fit  at  once  of  weakness  and  aimless  defiance  came 
over  him.  He  buried  his  face  in  his  hands;  he  could  still  hear 
Theresa  saying,  "All  that  nice  money." 

There  were  shadows  everywhere;  there  was  nothing  but  night 
and  shadows. 

Eleanore,  light  hearted  and  light  footed,  returned  at  last.  When 
she  saw  him,  she  stopped.  He  arose,  and  stretched  out  his  arms 
as  if  to  take  the  milk  bottle.  That  is  the  way  she  interpreted  his 
gesture,  and  handed  it  to  him  in  surprise.  He,  however,  set  it 
down  on  the  landing  beside  him.  The  light  from  the  living  room 
shone  on  it  and  made  it  look  sparkling  white.  Then  he  drew 
Eleanore  to  him,  threw  his  arms  around  her,  and  kissed  her  on  the 
mouth. 

Merely  a  creature  of  man,  only  a  woman,  nothing  but  heart  and 
breath,  all  longing  and  forgetting,  forgetting  for  just  one  moment, 
finding  herself  for  a  moment,  knowing  her  own  self  for  a  moment 
—she  pressed  close  up  to  him.  But  her  hands  were  folded  between 
her  breast  and  his,  and  thus  separated  their  bodies. 

Then  she  broke  away  from  him,  wrung  her  hands,  looked  up  at 
him,  pressed  close  up  to  him  again,  wrung  her  hands  again — it  was 


THE  GLASS  CASE  BREAKS  203 

ull  done  in  absolute  silence  and  with  an  almost  terrible  grace  and 
loveliness. 

Everything  was  now  entirely  different  from  what  it  had  been, 
or  what  she  had  formerly  imagined  it  to  be;  there  were  depths  to 
everything  now.  She  lost  herself;  she  ceased  to  exist  for  a 
moment;  darkness  enveloped  her  much-disciplined  heart;  she 
entered  upon  a  second  existence,  an  existence  that  had  no  similarity 
with  the  first. 

To  this  existence  she  was  now  bound;  she  had  succumbed  to  it: 
the  law  of  nature  had  gone  into  effect.  But  the  glass  case  liad 
been  shattered;  it  was  in  pieces.  She  stood  there  unprotected,  even 
exposed,  so  to  speak,  to  men,  no  longer  immune  to  their  glances, 
an  accessible  prey  to  their  touch. 

She  went  into  the  kitchen,  and  heated  the  milk.  Daniel  re- 
turned to  the  living  room.  His  veins  were  burning,  his  heart  was 
hammering.  He  had  no  sense  of  appreciation  of  the  time  that 
had  passed.  When  Eleanore  came  into  the  room,  he  began  to 
tremble. 

She  came  up  to  him,  and  spoke  to  him  in  passionate  sadness: 
"Have  you  heard  about  Gertrude?  Don't  you  know,  really?  She 
is  with  child — your  wife." 

"I  did  not  know  it,"  whispered  Daniel,     "Did  she  tell  you?" 

"Yes,  just  now." 


THE  habitues  of  the  reserved  table  at  the  Crocodile  were  all 
reasonably  well  informed  of  the  events  that  had  recently  taken 
place  in  the  homes  of  Inspector  Jordan  and  Jason  Philip  Schim- 
melweis.  Details  were  mentioned  that  would  make  it  seem  prob- 
able that  the  cracks  in  the  walls  and  the  key-holes  of  both  houses 
had  been  entertaining  eavesdroppers. 

Some  refused  to  believe  that  Jason  Philip  had  made  restitution 
for  the  money  young  Jordan  had  embezzled.  For,  said  Degen, 
the  baker,  Schimmelweis  is  a  hard-fisted  fellow,  and  whoever 
would  try  to  get  money  out  of  him  would  have  to  be  in  the  posses- 
sion of  extraordinary  shrewdness. 

"But  he  has  already  paid  it,"  said  Grundlich,  the  watchmaker. 
He  knew  he  had;  he  knew  that  the  wife  of  the  bookseller  had 
gone  over  to  Nothafft's  on  Tuesday  afternoon ;  that  she  had  a  heap 
of  silver  in  a  bag;  and  that  when  she  came  back  home  she  took  to 
bed,  and  had  been  ill  ever  since. 

Kitzler,  the  assistant  postmaster,  felt  there  was  something  wrong 
here;  and  if  there  was  not,  you  would  simply  have  to  assume  that 
Nothafft,  the  musician,  was  a  dangerous  citizen,  who  had  somehow 
managed  to  place  the  breast  of  his  uncle  vis-a-vis  a  revolver. 

"And  you  know,  Nothafft  is  to  be  made  Kapellmeister  at  the 
City  Theatre,"  remarked  the  editor  Weibezahl,  the  latest  member 
of  the  round  table.  "His  appointment  is  to  be  made  public  in  a 
few  days." 

"What!  Kapellmeister!  You  don't  say  so!  That  will  make 
Andreas  Doderlein  the  saddest  man  in  ten  states." 

Herr  Carovius,  whose  mouth  was  just  then  hanging  on  his  beer 
glass,  laughed  so  heartily  that  the  beer  went  down  his  Sunday 
throat;  he  was  seized  with  a  coughing  spell.  Herr  Korn  slapped 
him  on  the  back. 

It  was  a  shame  that  such  a  bad  actor  as  Nothafft  had  to  be 
endured  in  the  midst  of  people  who  lived  peaceful  and  law-abiding 
lives.  This  lament  came  from  Herr  Kleinlcin,  who  had  been 

204 


TRES  FACIUNT  COLLEGIUM  205 

circuit  judge  now  for  some  time.  He  was  anxious  to  know  whether 
all  the  tales  that  were  circulating  concerning  Nothafft  were  true. 

Well,  he  was  told,  a  great  many  things  are  said  about  Nothafft, 
but  it  is  difficult  to  get  at  the  truth.  They  appealed  to  the  apothe- 
cary Pflaum,  on  the  ground  that  his  assistant  knew  the  musician 
and  might  be  able  to  give  them  some  definite  information. 

Herr  Pflaum  took  on  an  air  as  if  he  knew  a  great  deal  but  was 
under  obligations  not  to  tell.  Yes,  yes,  he  said  rather  perfunctorily, 
he  had  heard  that  some  one  had  said  that  Nothafft  was  running  a 
pretty  questionable  domestic  establishment;  that  he  had  a  rather 
unsavoury  past;  and  that  there  was  some  talk  about  his  neglecting 
his  wife. 

The  deuce  you  say!  Why,  they  were  married  only  a  short 
while  ago.  Yes,  but  there  was  a  rumour  to  the  effect  that  there 
was  a  woman  in  the  case.  Who  could  it  be?  Ahem!  Well-ah, 
it  would  be  a  good  idea  to  be  cautious  about  mentioning  names. 
Good  Lord,  why  cautious?  Why  not  straight  out  with  the  infor- 
mation any  one  chanced  to  be  fortunate  enough  to  have?  Is  it  not 
a  question  of  protecting  one's  own  wife  and  daughters? 

And  so  this  slanderous  babble  rattled  on.  There  was  some- 
thing unfathomable  in  their  hatred  of  the  musician.  They  were 
just  as  agreed  on  this  point  as  they  would  have  been  if  Daniel  had 
broken  open  their  strong  boxes,  smashed  their  windows,  and  betrayed 
their  honour  and  dignity  to  public  ridicule. 

They  did  not  know  what  they  should  do  about  him.  They 
passed  by  him  as  one  would  pass  by  a  bomb  that  might  or  might 
not  explode.- 


When  Herr  Carovius  was  alone,  he  picked  up  the  paper,  and 
read  the  account  of  a  mine  explosion  in  Silesia.  The  number  of 
killed  satisfied  him.  The  description  of  the  women  as  they  stood 
at  the  top  of  the  shaft,  wept,  wrung  their  hands,  and  called  out 
the  names  of  their  husbands,  filled  him  with  the  same  agreeable 
sensation  that  he  experienced  when  he  listened  to  the  melancholy 
finale  of  a  Chopin  nocturne. 

But  he  could  not  forget  the  expression  on  Herr  Pflaum's  face 
when  he  told  how  Nothafft  was  neglecting  his  wife.  It  had  been 
the  expression  that  comes  out,  so  to  speak,  from  between  the  cur- 
tains of  a  sleeping  room:  something  was  up,  make  no  mistake,  some- 
thing was  going  on. 


206  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

For  quite  a  while  Herr  Carovius  had  harboured  the  suspicion 
that  there  was  something  wrong.  Twice  he  had  met  Daniel  and 
Eleanore  walking  along  the  street  in  the  twilight,  talking  to  each 
other  in  a  very  mysterious  way.  Things  were  going  on  behind 
Herr  Carovius's  back  which  he  could  not  afford  to  overlook. 

Since  the  day  Eleanore  had  disentangled  the  cord  of  his  nose 
glasses  from  the  button  of  his  top  coat,  the  picture  of  the  young 
girl  had  been  indelibly  stamped  on  his  mind.  He  could  still  see 
the  beautiful  curvature  of  her  young  bosom  as  she  raised  her  arm. 

A  year  and  a  half  after  this  incident,  Herr  Carovius  was  going 
through  some  old  papers.  He  chanced  upon  an  unfinished  letter 
which  Eberhard  von  Auffenberg  had  written  to  Eleanore  but  had 
never  posted.  Eberhard  had  come  to  Nuremberg  at  the  time  to 
transact  some  business  connected  with  the  negotiation  of  a  new 
loan ;  he  had  left  his  hotel,  and  Herr  Carovius  had  had  to  wait 
for  him  a  long  while.  This  time  he  had  spent  in  looking  over 
the  unsealed  documents  of  the  incautious  young  Baron. 

Then  it  was  that  he  discovered  the  letter.  What  words!  And 
oh,  the  passion!  Herr  Carovius  would  never  have  believed  that 
the  reserved  misanthrope  was  capable  of  such  a  display  of  emotion. 
He  felt  that  Eberhard  had  disclosed  to  him  the  most  secret  cham- 
bers of  his  heart.  He  was  terrified  at  the  voluptuousness  revealed 
to  him  by  the  unveiling  of  the  mystery  of  his  soul.  They  are 
human  beings  after  all,  those  members  of  the  nobility,  he  ex- 
claimed with  a  feeling  of  personal  triumph.  They  throw  them- 
selves away;  they  meet  some  slippery  imp,  and  fall;  they  lose 
control  of  themselves  as  soon  as  they  hear  a  skirt  rustle. 

But  what  concerned  the  Baron  in  this  case  concerned  also  Herr 
Carovius.  A  passion  that  had  taken  possession  of  the  Baron  had 
to  be  guarded,  studied,  and  eventually  shared  by  Herr  Carovius 
himself. 

Herr  Carovius's  loneliness  had  gradually  robbed  him  of  his 
equanimity.  Suppressed  impulses  were  stifling  his  mind  with  the 
luxuriant  growths  of  a  vivid  and  vicious  imagination.  The  adven- 
tures into  which  he  had  voluntarily  plunged  in  order  to  make  sure 
of  his  control  over  Eberhard  had  almost  ruined  him.  The  net 
he  had  spread  for  the  helplessly  fluttering  bird  now  held  him 
himself  entangled  in  its  meshes.  The  world  to  him  was  a  body 
full  of  wounds  on  which  he  was  battening  his  Neronic  lusts.  But 
it  was  at  the  same  time  a  tapestry  with  bright  coloured  pictures 
which  could  be  made  living  and  real  by  a  magic  formula,  and  this 
formula  he  had  not  yet  been  able  to  discover. 


TRES  FACIUNT  COLLEGIUM  207 

At  the  insinuations  of  the  apothecary  his  fancy  took  on  new 
life:  he  was  not  a  man  in  whose  soul  old  emotions  died  out;  his 
lusts  never  became  extinct.  Lying  on  the  sofa,  taking  his  midday 
siesta,  he  would  picture  the  figure  of  Eleanore  dancing  around 
him  in  diminutive  form.  When  he  sat  at  the  piano  and  played 
an  etude^  he  imagined  he  saw  Daniel  standing  beside  him  criticising 
his  technique — and  doing  it  with  much  show  of  arrrgance.  When 
he  went  out  of  evenings,  he  saw  Nothafft  displayed  on  all  the 
signs,  while  every  demi-monde  bore  Eleanore's  features. 

It  seemed  to  him  in  time  that  Eleanore  Jordan  was  his  property; 
that  he  had  a  right  to  her.  His  life,  he  felt,  was  full  of  lamentable 
privations:  other  people  had  everything,  he  had  nothing.  Others 
committed  crimes;  all  he  could  do  was  to  make  note  of  the  crimes. 
And  no  man  could  become  either  satiated  or  rich  from  merely  tak- 
ing the  criminal  incidents  of  other  people's  lives  into  account. 

At  midnight  he  put  on  his  sleeping  gown,  took  a  seat  before 
the  mirror,  and  read  until  break  of  day  a  novel  in  which  a  man 
fifty  years  old  has  a  secret  and  successful  love  affair  with  a  young 
woman.  As  he  read  this  novel  he  knew  that  something  was  going 
on.  And  he  knew  that  out  there  in  a  certain  house  on  ^Egydius 
Place  something  was  also  going  on.  Make  no  mistake,  some- 
thing was  up. 

He  saw  trysts  on  unlighted  stairways.  He  saw  people  coming 
to  mutual  understandings  by  a  certain  pressure  of  the  hand  and 
adulterous  signals.  That  is  the  way  they  did  it;  that  is  the  way 
Benda  and  Marguerite  had  done  it.  His  old  hate  was  revived. 
He  transferred  his  hate,  but  also  his  hope,  to  music.  Through 
music  he  was  to  build  a  bridge  to  Daniel  and  Eleanore.  He 
wanted  to  give  them  the  advantage  of  his  insight,  his  tricks,  his 
experience,  simply  in  order  that  he  might  be  on  hand  when  they 
committed  the  gruesome  deed;  so  that  he  might  not  be  cut  off 
from  them  by  an  impenetrable  wall  and  be  tortured  in  consequence 
by  an  incorporeal  jealousy;  he  wanted  to  be  one  with  them,  to 
feast  his  eye  and  reach  forth  his  empty,  senescent  hand. 

"I  am,"  he  said  to  himself,  "of  the  same  flesh  and  blood  as 
that  man;  in  me  too  there  is  Wolfgang  Amadeus  Mozart.  I  have, 
to  be  sure,"  he  said  to  himself,  "despised  women,  for  they  are 
despicable.  But  let  some  woman  come  forward  and  show  me 
that  she  is  fit  for  anything  more  than  to  increase  by  two  or  three 
the  number  of  idiots  with  which  the  world  is  already  overcrowded, 
and  I  will  do  penance,  whole  and  complete,  and  then  offer  her 
my  services  as  a  knight." 


208  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

He  no  longer  slept  or  ate;  nor  could  he  do  anything  that  was 
in-  any  way  rational.  In  a  belated  sexual  outburst,  a  second 
puberty,  his  imagination  became  inflamed  by  a  picture  which  he 
adorned  with  all  the  perfections  of  both  soul  and  body. 

He  heard  that  one  of  Daniel's  works  was  to  be  played  before 
invited  guests  at  the  home  of  Baroness  von  Auffenberg.  He  wired 
to  Eberhard,  and  asked  him  to  get  him  an  invitation.  The  reply 
was  a  negative  one.  In  his  rage  he  could  have  murdered  the  mes- 
senger boy.  He  then  wrote  to  Daniel,  and,  boasting  of  what  he 
had  already  done  for  him,  begged  Daniel  to  see  to  it  that  he 
was  among  the  guests  at  the  recital.  He  received  a  printed  card 
from  the  Baroness,  on  which  she  had  expressed  the  hope  that  she 
might  be  able  to  greet  him  on  a  certain  day. 

He  was  in  the  seventh  heaven.  He  decided  to  pay  Daniel  a 
visit,  and  to  thank  him  for  his  kindness. 


"The  only  thing  to  do  is  to  leave  the  city,  to  go  far,  far  away 
from  here,"  thought  Eleanore,  on  that  evening  that  was  so  different 
from  any  other  evening  of  her  life. 

While  she  was  combing  her  hair,  she  was  tempted  to  take  the 
scissors  and  cut  it  off  just  to  make  herself  ugly.  In  the  night  she 
went  to  the  window  to  look  for  the  stars.  If  it  only  had  not 
happened,  if  it  only  were  a  dream,  a  voice  within  her  cried. 

As  soon  as  it  turned  grey  in  the  morning,  she  got  up.  She 
hastened  through  the  deserted  streets,  just  as  she  had  done  yester- 
day, out  to  the  suburbs.  But  everything  was  different.  Tree 
and  bush  looked  down  upon  her  with  stern  reproachfulness.  The 
mists  hung  low;  but  the  hazy  grey  cold  of  the  early  morning 
was  like  a  bath  to  her.  Later  the  sun  broke  through;  primroses 
glistened  with  gold  on  the  meadow.  If  it  could  only  have  been 
a  dream,  she  thought  in  silence. 

When  she  came  home,  her  father  had  already  received  the  news 
about  the  money:  it  had  been  paid  to  Diruf ;  Daniel  had  taken  it 
to  him. 

Jordan  remained  in  his  room  the  whole  day.  And  on  the 
following  day  he  kept  to  himself  except  while  at  dinner.  He  sat 
at  the  table  with  bowed  head;  he  had  nothing  to  say.  Eleanore 
went  to  his  door  from  time  to  time  to  see  if  she  could  hear  him. 
There  was  not  a  sound;  the  house  sang  with  solitude. 

Jordan   had  requested   the   landlord   to  sublet   the   house   before 


TRES  FACIUNT  COLLEGIUM  309 

his  lease  had  expired:  he  felt  that  it  was  too  large  and  expensive 
for  him  in  the  present  state  of  his  affairs.  The  landlord  approved 
of  the  idea.  In  the  house  where  Daniel  and  Gertrude  were  living 
there  were  two  vacant  rooms  in  the  attic.  Gertrude  suggested  to 
her  father  that  it  would  be  well  for  him  to  take  them.  Jordan 
agreed  with  her. 

Eleanore  began  to  think  the  situation  over:  if  Father  moves  into 
those  rooms,  I  can  leave  him.  She  learned  from  Gertrude,  who 
came  now  to  see  her  father  every  other  day,  that  Daniel  had 
received  the  appointment  as  Kapellmeister  at  the  City  Theatre. 
Eleanore  could  carry  out  her  plans  then  with  a  clear  conscience, 
for  her  brother-in-law  and  her  sister  were  getting  along  quite 
well  at  present. 

She  recalled  some  conversations  she  had  had  with  M.  Riviere, 
who  had  advised  her  to  go  to  Paris.  Since  Christmas,  when  he  was 
invited  to  be  present  at  the  distribution  of  the  presents,  he  had 
been  coming  to  Jordan's  quite  frequently  to  talk  French  with 
Eleanore.  This  was  in  accord  with  her  express  desire. 

One  afternoon  she  went  to  visit  M.  Riviere.  He  was  living  in 
the  romantic  place  up  by  the  gardener  on  Castle  Hill.  His  room 
had  a  balcony  that  was  completely  overgrown  with  ivy  and  elder, 
while  in  the  background  the  trees  and  bushes  of  the  city  moat 
formed  an  impenetrable  maze  of  green.  The  spring  air  floated 
into  the  room  in  waves.  As  Eleanore  made  her  business  known, 
she  fixed  her  enchanted  eyes  on  a  bouquet  of  lilies  of  the  valley 
that  stood  on  the  table  in  a  bronze  vase. 

M.  Riviere  took  a  handful  of  them,  and  gave  them  to  her. 
They  had  not  been  cut;  they  had  been  pulled  up  by  the  roots. 
Eleanore  laughed  happily  at  the  fragrance. 

M.  Riviere  said  he  was  just  about  to  write  to  his  mother  in 
Paris,  and  as  she  was  so  familiar  with  the  city,  she  could  be  of 
great  help  to  Eleanore. 

Eleanore  stepped  out  on  the  balcony.  "The  world  is  beautiful," 
she  thought,  and  smiled  at  the  fruitless  efforts  of  a  tiny  beetle 
to  climb  up  a  perpendicular  leaf.  "Perhaps  it  was  after  all 
merely  a  dream,"  she  thought,  and  thereby  consoled  herself. 

When  she  returned,  Daniel  was  at  her  father's.  The  two  men 
were  sitting  in  the  dark. 

Eleanore  lighted  the  lamp.  Then  she  filled  a  glass  with  water, 
and  put  the  lilies  of  the  valley  in  it. 

"Daniel  wants  to  know  why  you  never  visit  them  any  more," 
said  Jordan,  weak  and  distraught  as  he  now  always  was.  "I  told 


210  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

him  you  were  busy  at  present  with  great  plans  of  your  own. 
Well,  what  does  the  Frenchman  think  about  it?" 

Eleanore  answered  her  father's  question  in  a  half  audible  voice. 

"Go  wherever  you  want  to  go,  child,"  said  Jordan.  "You  have 
been  prepared  for  an  independent  life  in  the  world  for  a  long  while; 
there  is  no  doubt  about  that.  God  forbid  that  I  should  put  any 
hindrances  in  your  way."  He  got  up  with  difficulty,  and  turned 
toward  the  door  of  his  room.  Taking  hold  of  the  latch,  he 
stopped,  and  continued  in  his  brooding  way:  "It  is  peculiar  that 
a  man  can  die  by  inches  in  a  living  body;  that  a  man  can  have 
the  feeling  that  he's  no  longer  a  part  of  the  present;  and  that  he 
can  no  longer  play  his  role,  keep  up  with  his  own  people,  grasp 
what  is  going  on  about  him,  or  know  whether  what  is  to  come  is 
good  or  evil.  It  is  fearful  when  a  man  reaches  that  stage,  fear- 
ful—fearful!" 

He  left  the  room,  shaking  his  head.  To  Daniel  his  words 
sounded  like  a  voice  from  the  grave. 

They  had  been  silent  for  a  long  while,  he  and  Eleanore.  Sud- 
denly he  asked  gruffly:  "Are  you  serious  about  going  to  Paris?" 

"Of  course  I  am,"  she  said,  "what  else  can  I  do?" 

He  sprang  up,  and  looked  angrily  into  her  face:  "One  has  to 
be  ashamed  of  one's  self,"  he  said,  "human  language  becomes 
repulsive.  Don't  you  have  a  feeling  of  horror  when  you  think? 
Don't  you  shudder  when  you  reflect  on  that  caricature  known  as 
the  heart,  or  the  soul,  or  whatever  it  may  be  called?" 

"I  don't  understand  you,  Daniel,"  said  Eleanore.  She  would 
never  have  considered  it  possible  that  he  would  look  with  disfavour 
on  her  contrition  and  the  decision  that  had  sprung  from  it.  Then 
it  had  not  after  all  been  the  flash  of  a  solitary  second?  Had  she 
not  hoped  and  expected  to  hear  a  self-accusation  from  him  that 
would  make  her  forget  all  and  forgive  herself?  Where  was  she? 
In  what  world  or  age  was  she  living? 

"Do  you  believe  that  I  merely  wanted  to  enjoy  a  diverting  and 
momentary  side-step?"  Daniel  continued,  measuring  her  with  his 
eyes  from  head  to  foot.  "Do  you  believe  that  it  is  possible  to 
jest  with  the  most  sacred  laws  of  nature?  You  have  had  a  good 
schooling,  I  must  say;  you  do  your  teachers  honour.  Go!  I  don't 
need  you.  Go  to  Paris,  and  let  me  degenerate!" 

He  stepped  to  the  door.  Then  he  turned,  and  took  the  lamp, 
which  she  had  removed  from  the  holder  when  she  lighted  it.  Hold- 
ing the  lamp  in  his  right  hand,  he  walked  close  up  to  her.  Her 


TRES  FACIUNT  COLLEGIUM  211 

eyes  closed  involuntarily.  "I  simply  wanted  to  see  whether  it  was 
really  you,"  he  said  with  passionate  contempt.  "Yes,  it  is  you," 
he  said  scornfully,  "it  is  you."  With  that  he  placed  the  lamp 
on  the  table. 

"I  don't  understand  you,  Daniel,"  she  said  softly.  She  looked 
around  for  some  object  to  rest  her  eyes  on. 

"So  I  see.     Good  night." 

"Daniel!" 

But  he  had  already  gone.  The  hall  door  closed  with  a  bang. 
The  house  sang  with  solitude. 

The  green  threadbare  sofa,  the  old,  old  smoke  stains  on  the 
whitewashed  ceiling,  the  five  rickety  chairs  that  reminded  her  of 
so  many  decrepit  old  men,  the  mirror  with  the  gilded  angel  of 
stucco  at  the  top— all  these  things  were  so  tiring,  so  irksome,  so 
annoying:  they  were  like  underbrush  in  the  forest. 

Little  brother!     Little  brother! 


IV 

Three  evenings  of  the  week  were  devoted  to  opera,  the  others 
to  drama. 

The  first  Kapellmeister  was  a  middle-aged  man  whose  curly  hair 
made  him  the  idol  of  all  flappers.  He  was  lazy,  uncultivated, 
and  his  name  was  Lebrecht. 

The  director  was  an  old  stager  who  referred  to  the  public  about 
as  a  disrespectful  footman  refers  to  his  lord.  At  Daniel's  sug- 
gestions for  improving  the  repertory,  he  generally  shrugged  his 
shoulders.  The  operas  in  which  he  had  the  greatest  confidence 
as  drawing  cards  were  "The  Beggar  Student,"  "Fra  Diavolo," 
"L'Africaine,"  and  "Robert  le  Diable."  The  singers  and  the 
orchestra  were  not  much  better  than  those  of  the  lamented 
Dormaul-Wurzelmann  troupe.  The  possibility  of  arousing  them 
to  intensified  effort  or  filling  them  with  a  semblance  of  intelligent 
enthusiasm  for  art  was  even  less.  Privileges  based  on  length  of 
service  and  the  familiar  traditions  of  indolence  made  aesthetic 
innovations  unthinkable. 

Wherever  careworn  Philistines  and  slothful  materialists  occupy 
the  seats  from  which  art  should  raise  her  voice,  advancement, 
progress  born  of  sacrificial  application,  is  out  of  the  question:  the 
most  it  is  reasonable  to  expect  is  a  bourgeois  fulfilment  of  ines- 
capable duties.  In  such  cases  the  flower  droops;  the  dream  van- 


212  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

ishes;  the  free-born  spirit  has  the  choice  of  fighting  day  in  and 
day  out  against  the  collective  demons  of  pettiness  and  mediocrity, 
or  of  going  down  in  admitted  defeat. 

"Stuff  the  people  can  easily  digest,  my  dear  boy,  that  is  the 
idea,"  said  the  director. 

"What  are  you  so  excited  about?  Don't  you  know  these  people 
haven't  a  musical  muscle  in  their  whole  soul?"  said  Lebrecht. 

"For  nine  consecutive  years  I  have  been  singing  F  sharp  at  this 
opera  house,  and  now  here  comes  a  musicien  from  the  backwoods 
and  demands  all  of  a  sudden  that  I  sing  F!"  This  was  the  com- 
mentary of  Fraulein  Varini,  the  prima  donna  whose  outstanding 
bosom  had  long  been  a  source  of  human  merriment  to  pit,  stall, 
and  gallery. 

"Ah,  he  is  a  greasy  grind  determined  to  arrive,"  said  the  first 
violinist. 

"He's  a  spit-fire,"  said  the  lad  who  beat  the  big  drum,  when 
Daniel  threatened  to  box  his  ears  for  a  false  intonation. 

The  Baroness  had  secured  a  publisher  in  Leipzig  for  his  cycle 
of  sixteen  songs;  the  compositions  were  to  be  brought  out  at  her 
expense.  That  did  not  have  the  right  effect:  it  was  not  some- 
thing, Daniel  felt,  that  he  had  fought  for  and  won;  it  was  not  a 
case  where  merit  had  made  rejection  impossible.  He  had  the 
feeling  that  he  was  selling  his  soul  and  was  being  paid  to  do  it. 
Moreover,  and  worst  of  all,  he  had  to  express  his  gratitude  for  this 
act.  The  Baroness  loved  to  have  somebody  thank  her  for  what  she 
had  done.  She  never  once  suspected  that  what  Daniel  wanted  was 
not  benefactors,  but  people  who  were  stirred  to  the  depths  of  their 
souls  by  his  creations.  The  rich  cannot  sense  the  feelings  of  the 
poor;  the  higher  classes  remain  out  of  contact  with  the  lower. 

His  excitability  saved  him.  In  his  magnificent  solicitude  for 
the  mission  that  is  at  once  the  token  and  the  curse  of  those  who 
are  really  called,  he  shut  himself  off  from  a  world  from  which 
the  one  thing  he  wanted  was  bread;  bread  and  nothing  else. 

After  the  publication  of  the  songs  a  review  appeared  in  the 
Phoenix  which  had  a  remarkably  realistic  ring  to  the  ear  of  the 
layman.  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  was  merely  an  underhanded  attempt 
at  assassination.  The  thing  was  signed  with  a  big,  isolated  "W." 
Wurzelmann,  the  little  slave,  had  shot  from  his  ambush. 

Other  musical  journals  copied  this  review.  A  half  dozen  people 
bought  the  songs;  then  they  were  forgotten. 

It  was  no  use  to  hope.  The  trouble  was,  he  needed  bread,  just 
bread. 


TRES  FACIUNT  COLLEGIUM  213 


It  was  often  difficult  for  him  to  find  the  peace  and  quiet  neces- 
sary for  effective  work.  May  brought  cold  weather;  they  had  to 
make  a  fire;  the  stove  smoked;  the  potter  came  in  and  removed  the 
tiles;  the  room  looked  like  an  inferno. 

Gertrude  was  pounding  sugar:  "Don't  be  angry  at  me,  Daniel; 
I  must  pound  the  sugar  to-day."  And  she  pounded  away  until  the 
hammer  penetrated  the  paralysed  brain  of  the  listener  by  force  of 
circumstances. 

The  hinges  of  the  door  screeched.  "You  ought  to  oil  them, 
Gertrude."  Gertrude  looked  high  and  low  for  the  oil  can,  and 
when  she  finally  found  it,  she  had  no  feather  to  use  in  smearing 
the  oil  on.  She  went  over  to  the  chancellor's,  and  borrowed  one 
from  her  maid.  While  she  was  gone,  the  milk  boiled  over  and 
filled  the  house  with  a  disagreeable  stench. 

The  door  bell  rang.  It  was  the  cobbler;  he  had  come  to  get 
the  money  for  the  patent  leather  shoes.  The  wives  of  Herr 
Kirschner  and  Herr  Riibsam  had  both  said  that  Daniel  must  not 
think  of  appearing  at  the  coming  recital  at  the  Baroness's  without 
patent  leather  shoes. 

"I  haven't  the  money,  Gertrude;  have  you  got  that  much?" 

Gertrude  went  through  her  chests,  and  scraped  up  five  marks 
which  she  gave  the  cobbler  as  a  first  instalment.  The  man  went 
away  growling;  Daniel  hid  from  him. 

Gertrude  was  sitting  in  the  living  room  making  clothes  for 
her  baby-to-come.  There  was  a  happy  expression  on  her  face. 
Daniel  knew  that  it  was  a  display  of  maternal  joy  and  expectation, 
but  since  he  could  not  share  this  joy,  since  indeed  he  felt  a  sense 
of  fear  at  the  appearance  of  the  child,  her  happiness  embittered 
him. 

Between  the  fuchsias  in  the  window  stood  a  robin  red-breast; 
the  impish  bird  had  its  head  turned  to  one  side,  and  was  peeping 
into  the  room:  "Come  out,"  it  chirped,  "come  out."  And  Daniel 
went. 

He  had  an  engagement  with  M.  Riviere  at  the  cafe  by  the 
market  place.  Since  he  no  longer  saw  anything  of  F.leanore,  he 
wanted  to  find  out  how  her  plans  for  going  to  Paris  were  getting 
along. 

The  Frenchman  told  of  the  progress  he  was  making  in  his 
Caspar  Hauser  research.  In  hi?  broken  German  he  told  of  the 
murder  of  body  and  soul  that  had  been  committed  in  the  case  of 


214  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

the  foundling:  "He  was  a  mortal  man  comme  une  etoile"  he 
said.  "The  bourgeoisie  crushed  him.  The  bourgeoisie  is  the 
ratine  of  all  evil." 

Daniel  never  mentioned  Eleanore's  name.  He  tried  to  satisfy 
himself  by  the  fact  that  she  kept  out  of  his  sight.  He  bit  his 
lips  together,  and  said:  I  will.  But  a  stronger  power  in  him  said, 
No,  you  won't.  And  this  stronger  power  became  a  beggar.  It 
went  around  saying,  Give  me,  please,  give  me! 

The  billiard  balls  rattled.  A  gentleman  in  a  red  velvet  vest 
had  a  quarrel  with  a  shabby  looking  fellow  who  had  been  reading 
Fliegende  Blatter  for  the  last  two  hours;  he  would  begin  over 
and  over  again  at  the  very  beginning,  and  break  out  into  con- 
vulsions of  laughter  every  time  he  came  to  his  favourite  jokes. 

Daniel  was  silent;  he  insisted  somehow  on  remaining  silent. 
M.  Riviere  wished,  for  this  reason,  to  hear  something  about  the 
"Harzreise."  By  way  of  starting  a  discussion  he  remarked  quite 
timidly  that  sans  musique  la  vie  est  insupportable,  "There  is  some- 
thing about  music  that  reminds  one  of  insanity,"  he  remarked. 
He  said  there  were  nights  when  he  would  open  a  volume  of 
Schubert's  or  Brahms's  songs,  leaf  through  them,  read  the  notes, 
and  hum  the  melodies  simply  in  order  to  escape  the  despair  which 
the  conduct  of  the  people  about  him  was  emptying  into  his  heart. 
"Moi,  I  ought  to  be,  how  do  you  say?  stoic;  mais  I  am  not.  In 
me  there  is  trop  de-  musique,  et  c'est  le  contraire." 

Daniel  looked  at  him  in  astonishment.  "Come  with  me,"  he  said 
suddenly,  got  up,  and  took  him  by  the  arm. 

They  met  Eleanore  in  the  hall.  She  had  been  up  in  the  new 
flat  with  the  whitewasher.  Her  father  was  to  move  in  the  follow- 
ing day. 

"Why  was  all  this  done  so  quickly?"  asked  Daniel,  full  of  a 
vague  happiness  that  drew  special  nourishment  from  the  fact  that 
Eleanore  was  plainly  excited. 

"Mere  chance,"  she  said,  and  carefully  avoided  looking  at  him. 
"A  captain  who  is  being  transferred  here  from  Ratisbon  is  moving 
in  our  place.  It  is  a  pity  to  leave  the  good  old  rooms.  The 
second-hand  dealer  is  going  to  get  a  deal  of  our  stuff;  there  is 
no  room  for  it  up  there  in  those  two  cubby  holes.  How  is 
Gertrude?  May  I  go  up  and  see  her  for  a  minute  or  two?" 

"Yes,  £o  right  up,"  said  Daniel  stiffly;  "you  can  stay  and  listen 
if  you  wish  to.  I  am  going  to  play  the  Harzreise." 

"If  I  wish  to?  I  almost  have  a  right  to;  you  promised  me  this 
long  ago." 


TRES  FACIUNT  COLLEGIUM  215 

"She  thinks  after  all  that  I  want  to  catch  her,"  he  thought  to 
himself.  "It  will  be  better  for  me  to  drop  the  whole  business 
than  to  let  the  idea  creep  into  her  stupid  skull  that  my  composition 
is  going  to  make  propaganda  for  our  private  affairs."  With 
bowed  head  he  ascended  the  stairs,  M.  Riviere  and  Eleanore  fol- 
lowing along  behind.  His  ears  were  pricked  to  hear  anything  they 
might  say  about  Paris;  they  talked  about  the  weather. 

As  they  entered  the  room  Gertrude  had  the  harp  between  her 
knees;  but  she  was  not  playing.  Her  hands  lay  on  the  strings, 
her  head  was  resting  on  the  frame.  "Why  haven't  you  lighted  a 
lamp?"  asked  Daniel  angrily. 

She  was  terrified;  she  looked  at  him  anxiously.  The  expression 
on  her  face  made  him  conscious  of  many  things  that  he  had  kept 
in  the  background  of  his  thoughts  during  his  everyday  life:  her 
unconditional  surrender  to  him;  the  magnanimity  and  nobility  of 
her  heart,  which  was  as  dependent  on  his  as  the  mercury  in  the 
thermometer  is  dependent  on  the  atmosphere;  her  speechless  resig- 
nation regarding  a  thousand  little  things  in  her  life!  her  well-nigh 
supernatural  ability  to  enter  into  the  spirit  and  enjoyment  of  what 
he  was  doing,  however  much  his  mind  might  presume  to  write 
De  -projundis  across  his  creations. 

It  was  on  this  account  that  he  recognised  in  her  face  a  serious, 
far-a-way  warning.  At  once  cowardly  and  reverential,  conscious 
of  his  guilt  and  yet  feeling  innocent,  he  went  up  to  her  and 
kissed  her  on  the  hair.  She  leaned  her  head  on  his  breast,  thus 
causing  him  to  feel,  though  quite  unaware  of  it  herself,  the  whole 
weight  of  the  burden  she  was  placing  on  him. 

He  told  her  he  was  going  to  play.  He  said:  "I  have  lost  my 
picture  again;  I  want  to  try  to  find  it  in  others." 

Gertrude  begged  him,  with  a  pale  face,  to  be  permitted  to  stay 
in  the  living  room.  She  closed  the  door  only  partly. 


In  Goetne  s  verses  entitled  "Harzreise  im  Winter,"  thoughts 
lie  scattered  about  like  erratic  strata  in  the  world  of  geology,  and 
feelings  that  are  as  big  and  terrible  as  the  flames  from  burning 
planets.  In  Daniel's  work  the  whole  of  Goethe's  prodigious  sor- 
row and  solemnity  seemed  to  have  been  transformed  automatically 
into  music. 

When,  in  the  second  half,  the  motif  of  human  voices  was  taken 
over,  when  these  voices  pealed  forth  first  singly,  one  by  one, 


216  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

from  the  surging  sea  of  tones,  and  then  gathered  with  ever- 
increasing  avidity,  longing,  and  candour  into  the  great  chorus,  one 
had  the  feeling  that  without  this  liberation  they  would  have  been 
stifled  in  the  darkness. 

The  effect  of  the  pianissimo  moaning  of  the  basses  before  the 
soprano  set  in  was  overwhelming:  it  was  like  the  vulture  which, 
resting  with  easy  wing  on  the  dark  morning  cloud,  spies  around 
for  booty.  So  was  the  song  meant  to  be.  The  trombone  solo  was 
a  shout  of  victory:  it  imparted  new  life  to  the  sunken  orchestra. 

Daniel  had  infinite  trouble  in  making  all  this  wealth  of  sym- 
bolic art  clear  through  song,  word,  and  gesture  at  the  same  time 
that  his  music  was  being  played. 

The  work  abounded  in  blends  and  half  tones  which  stamped  it 
as  a  child  of  its  age,  and  still  more  of  ages  to  come,  despite  the 
compact  rigidity  of  its  architecture.  There  was  no  bared  sweet- 
ness in  it;  it  was  as  rough  as  the  bark  of  a  tree;  it  was  as  rough 
as  anything  that  is  created  with  the  assurance  of  inner  durability. 

Its  rhythm  was  uniform,  regular;  it  provided  only  for  cres- 
cendos.  There  was  nothing  of  the  seductive,  nothing  of  the  waltz- 
fever  in  it.  It  was  in  no  way  cheap;  it  did  not  flatter  slothful  ears. 
It  had  no  languishing  motifs;  it  was  all  substance  and  exterior. 
The  melody  was  concealed  like  a  hard  kernel  in  a  thick  shell; 
and  not  merely  concealed:  it  was  divided,  and  then  the  divisions 
were  themselves  divided.  It  was  condensed,  compressed,  bound, 
and  at  the  same  time  subterranean.  It  was  created  to  rise  from 
its  depths,  rejoice,  and  overwhelm:  "But  clothe  the  lonely  one  in 
thy  clouds  of  gold!  Enshroud  with  ivy  until  the  roses  bloom 
again,  oh  Love,  the  dampened  hair  of  thy  poet!" 

The  work  was  written  a  quarter  of  a  century  before  its  time. 
It  was  out  of  touch  with  the  nerves  of  its  contemporary  environ- 
ment. It  could  not  hope  to  count  upon  a  prophet  or  an  inter- 
preter. It  could  not  be  carried  further  by  the  benevolence  of 
congenial  champions.  It  bore  the  marks  of  mortal  neglect.  It  was 
like  a  bird  from  the  tropics  left  to  die  on  the  icy  coasts  of 
Greenland. 

But  for  those  who  are  near  in  heart  there  is  a  fluid  in  the  air 
that  intercedes  for  the  higher  truth.  M.  Riviere  and  Eleanore 
scarcely  breathed  during  the  recital.  Eleanore's  big  eyes  were  still: 
they  opened  and  closed  slowly.  When  Daniel  finished,  he  dried 
his  hot  brow  with  his  handkerchief,  and  then  his  arms  fell  limp 
at  his  sides.  He  felt  as  if  the  brilliancy  of  Eleanore's  eyes  had 
reached  the  tips  of  his  hair  and  had  electrified  it. 


TRES  FACIUNT  COLLEGIUM  217 

"Enshroud  with  ivy,  until  the  roses  bloom  again,  oh  Love,  the 
dampened  hair  of  thy  poet!" 

"It  is  impossible  to  get  an  idea  of  it,"  murmured  Daniel;  "the 
piano  is  like  an  instrument  of  torture." 

They  were  struck  by  peculiar  sounds  coming  from  the  living 
room.  They  went  in,  and  found  Gertrude  pale  as  death,  her 
hands  folded  across  her  bosom,  sitting  on  the  sofa.  She  was  talk- 
ing to  herself,  partly  as  if  in  a  dream,  partly  as  if  she  were  pray- 
ing. It  was  impossible  to  understand  what  she  was  saying.  She 
seemed  distant,  estranged. 

Eleanore  hastened  to  her;  Daniel  looked  at  her  with  a  scowl. 
Just  then  the  bell  rang,  and  M.  Riviere  went  out.  There  was  the 
sound  of  a  man's  voice;  it  was  disagreeable.  The  door  was  opened 
and — Herr  Carovius  entered. 


Herr  Carovius  bowed  in  all  directions.  He  wore  tan  shoes  with 
brass  buckles,  black  trousers,  a  shiny  green  coat,  and  a  white 
cravat  that  could  no  longer  be  called  clean.  He  laid  his  slouch 
hat  on  a  chair,  and  said  he  would  like  to  beg  their  pardon  if  he 
had  called  at  an  inopportune  hour.  He  had  come,  he  said,  to  thank 
his  dear  young  master  for  the  aforementioned  invitation. 

"It  seems — yes,  it  seems,"  he  added,  with  a  droll  blinking  of 
his  eyes,  "that  I  have  in  all  innocence  interrupted  the  performance 
of  a  most  interesting  production.  There  is  a  crowd  of  people 
gathered  out  in  front  of  the  house,  and  I  could  not  forego  the 
pleasure  of  listening.  I  hope  you  will  not  stop  playing  the  sacri- 
ficial festival  on  my  account.  What  was  it,  maestro?  It  wasn't  the 
symphony,  was  it?" 

"Yes,  it  was  the  symphony,"  replied  Daniel,  who  was  so  amazed 
at  the  appearance  and  conduct  of  the  man  that  he  was  really 
courteous. 

"It  cost  me  money  to  be  sure — believe  it  or  not.  I  had  to  get 
an  afternoon  coat  that  would  do  for  a  Count — latest  cut,  velvet 
collar,  tails  that  reached  down  to  my  calves.  Aristocratic,  very!' 
He  stared  over  Gertrude's  head  into  the  corner,  and  tittered  for 
at  least  a  half  a  minute. 

Nobody  said  a  word.     Everybody  was  dumb,  astounded. 

"Good  lord,  social  obligations,"  continued  Herr  Carovius,  "but 
after  all  you  can't  afford  to  be  a  backwoodsman.  Music  is  sup- 
posed to  ennoble  a  man  even  externally.  By  the  way,  there  is  a 


218  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

rumour  afloat  that  it  is  a  symphony  with  chorus.  How  did  you 
happen  upon  the  idea?  The  laurels  of  the  Ninth  will  not  let  you 
sleep?  I  would  have  thought  that  you  didn't  give  a  damn  about 
classical  models.  Everybody  is  so  taken  up  now  with  musical  lul- 
labies, wage-la-wei-a,  that  kind  of  stuff,  you  know.  But  then  I 
suppose  that  is  only  a  transition  stage,  as  the  fox  said  when  he  was 
being  skinned." 

He  took  off  his  nose  glasses,  polished  them  very  hastily,  fumbled 
for  a  while  with  his  cord,  and  then  put  them  on  again.  Having 
gained  time  in  this  way,  he  began  to  expatiate  on  the  decadence 
of  the  arts,  asked  Daniel  whether  he  had  ever  heard  anything 
about  a  certain  Hugo  Wolf  who  was  being  much  talked  about  and 
who  was  sitting  in  darkest  Austria  turning  out  songs  like  a  Hot- 
tentot, made  a  number  of  derogatory  remarks  about  a  fountain 
that  was  being  erected  in  the  city,  said  that  a  company  of  dancers 
had  just  appeared  at  the  Cultural  Club  in  a  repertory  of  gro- 
tesque pantomimes,  remarked  that  as  he  was  coming  over  he 
learned  that  there  was  an  institution  in  the  city  that  loaned  potato 
sacks,  and  that  there  had  just  been  a  fearful  fire  in  Constanti- 
nople. 

Thereupon  he  looked  first  at  Daniel,  then  at  M.  Riviere,  took 
the  snarls  of  the  one  and  the  embarrassment  of  the  other  to  be 
encouraging  signs  for  the  continuation  of  his  gossip,  readjusted  his 
glasses,  and  sneezed.  Then  he  smoothed  out  the  already  remark- 
ably smooth  hairs  he  had  left  on  his  head,  rubbed  his  hands  as 
if  he  were  beginning  to  feel  quite  at  home,  and  tittered  when 
there  was  any  sign  of  a  stoppage  in  his  asinine  eloquence. 

At  times  he  would  cast  a  stealthy  glance  at  Gertrude,  who 
would  draw  back  somewhat  as  the  arm  of  a  thief  who  feels  he  is 
being  watched.  Eleanore  did  not  seem  to  be  present  so  far  as  he 
was  concerned:  he  did  not  see  her.  Finally  she  got  up.  She  was 
tortured  by  the  interruption  of  what  she  had  just  experienced  from 
the  music  and  by  his  flat,  stale,  and  unprofitable  remarks.  Then 
he  got  up  too,  looked  at  his  watch  as  if  he  were  frightened,  asked 
if  he  might  repeat  his  visit  at  another  time,  took  leave  of  Ger- 
trude with  a  silly  old-fashioned  bow,  from  Daniel  with  a  con- 
fidential handshake,  and  from  the  Frenchman  with  uncertain  cour- 
tesy. Eleanore  he  again  entirely  overlooked. 

Out  in  the  hall  he  stopped,  nodded  several  times,  and  said  with 
an  almost  insane  grin,  speaking  into  the  empty  air  before  him: 
"Auf  Wiedersehen,  fair  one!  Auf  Wiedersehen,  fairest  of  all! 
Good-bye,  my  angel!  Forget  me  not!" 


TRES  FACIUNT  COLLEGIUM  219 

In    the    room    Eleanore    whispered    in    a    heavy,    anxious    tone: 
"What  was  that?     What  was  that? " 


VIII 


Philippina  Schimmelweis  came  to  help  Eleanore  with  the  mov- 
ing. At  first  Ele»nore  was  quite  surprised;  then  she  became  accus- 
tomed to  having  her  around  and  found  her  most  helpful.  Jordan 
took  no  interest  in  anything  that  was  going  on.  The  last  of  all 
his  hope  seemed  to  be  shattered  by  the  fact  that  he  was  to  move. 

Philippina  gradually  fell  into  the  habit  of  coming  every  day 
and  working  for  a  few  hours  either  for  Eleanore  or  for  Gertrude, 
so  long  as  the  latter  had  anything  to  do  in  the  kitchen.  They 
became  used  to  seeing  her,  and  put  up  with  her.  She  tried  to 
make  as  little  noise  as  possible;  she  had  the  mien  of  a  person  who 
is  filling  an  important  but  unappreciated  office. 

She  made  a  study  of  the  house;  she  knew  the  rooms  by  heart. 
She  preferred  to  come  along  toward  sunset  or  a  little  later.  One 
day  she  told  Eleanore  she  had  seen  a  mysterious-looking  person 
out  on  the  hall  steps.  Eleanore  took  a  candle  and  went  out,  but 
she  could  not  see  any  one.  Philippina  insisted  nevertheless  that 
she  had  seen  a  man  in  a  green  doublet,  and  that  he  had  made  a 
face  at  her. 

She  was  particularly  attracted  by  the  rooms  in  the  attic.  She 
told  the  neighbours  that  there  was  an  owl  up  there.  As  a  result 
of  this  the  children  of  that  section  began  to  fear  the  entire 
house,  while  the  chancellor's  wife,  who  lived  on  the  ground  floor, 
became  so  nervous  that  she  gave  up  her  apartment. 

There  was  no  outside  door  or  entrance  hall  of  any  kind  to 
Jordan's  new  quarters.  You  went  direct  from  the  stairway  into 
the  room  where  Eleanore  worked  and  slept.  Adjoining  this  was 
her  father's  room.  People  still  called  him  the  Inspector,  although 
he  no  longer  had  such  a  position. 

He  sat  in  his  narrow,  cramped  room  the  whole  day.  One  wall 
was  out  of  plumb.  The  windows  he  kept  closed.  When  Eleanore 
brought  him  his  breakfast  or  called  him  to  luncheon,  which  she 
had  cooked  in  the  tiny  box  of  a  kitchen  and  then  served  in  her  own 
little  room,  he  was  invariably  sitting  at  the  table  before  a  stack 
of  papers,  mostly  old  bills  and  letters.  The  arrangement  of  these 
he  never  changed. 

Once  she  entered  his  room  without  knocking.  He  sprang  up, 
closed  a  drawer  as  quickly  as  he  could,  locked  it,  put  the  key  in 


220  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

his  pocket,  and  tried  to  smile  in  an  innocent  way.     Eleanore's  heart 
almost  stopped  beating. 

He  never  went  out  until  it  was  dark,  and  on  his  return  he  could 
be  seen  carrying  a  package  under  his  arm.  This  he  took  with 
him  to  his  room. 

At  first  Eleanore  was  always  uneasy  when  she  had  to  leave. 
She  requested  Philippina  to  be  very  careful  and  see  to  it  that  no 
stranger  entered  the  house.  Philippina  had  a  box  full  of  ribbons 
in  Eleanore's  cabinet.  She  set  a  chair  against  the  door  leading 
into  Jordan's  room;  and  when  her  hands  were  tired  from  rum- 
maging around  in  the  ribbons  and  her  eyes  weary  from  looking  at 
all  the  flashy  colours,  she  pressed  her  ear  to  the  door  to  see  if  she 
could  find  out  what  the  old  man  was  doing. 

At  times  she  heard  him  talking.  It  seemed  as  if  he  were  talking 
with  some  one.  His  voice  had  an  exhortatory  but  tender  tone 
in  it.  Philippina  trembled  with  fear.  Once  she  even  pressed 
the  latch;  she  wanted  to  open  the  door  as  quietly  as  possible,  so 
that  she  might  peep  in  and  see  what  was  really  going  on.  But 
to  her  vexation,  the  door  was  bolted  on  the  other  side. 

For  Gertrude  she  did  small  jobs  and  ran  little  errands:  she 
would  go  to  the  baker  or  the  grocer  for  her.  Gertrude  became 
less  and  less  active;  it  was  exceedingly  difficult  for  her  to  climb 
the  stairs.  Philippina  took  the  place  of  a  maid.  The  only  kind  of 
work  she  refused  to  do  was  work  that  would  soil  her  clothes. 
Gertrude's  shyness  irritated  her;  one  day  she  said  in  a  snappy  tone: 
"You  are  pretty  proud,  ain't  you?  You  don't  like  me,  do  you?" 
Gertrude  looked  at  her  in  amazement,  and  made  no  reply;  she  did 
not  know  what  to  say. 

Whenever  Philippina  heard  Daniel  coming,  she  hid  herself. 
But  if  he  chanced  to  catch  sight  of  her,  he  merely  shrugged  his 
shoulders  at  the  "frame,"  as  he  contemptuously  called  her.  It 
seemed  to  him  that  it  would  be  neither  wise  nor  safe  to  mistreat 
her.  He  felt  that  it  was  the  better  part  of  valour  to  look  with 
favour  on  her  inexplicable  diligence,  and  let  it  go  at  that. 

Once  he  even  so  completely  overcame  himself  that  he  gave  her 
his  hand;  but  he  drew  it  back  immediately:  he  felt  that  he  had 
never  touched  anything  so  slimy  in  his  life;  he  thought  he  had 
taken  hold  of  a  frog.  Philippina  acted  as  if  she  had  not  noticed 
what  he  had  done.  But  scarcely  had  he  gone  into  his  room,  when 
she  turned  to  Gertrude  with  a  diabolic  glimmer  in  her  eyes,  and, 
making  full  use  of  her  vulgar  voice,  said:  "Whew!  Daniel's  kind, 
ain't  he?  No  wonder  people  can't  stand  him!" 


TRES  FACIUNT  COLLEGIUM  221 

When  she  saw  that  Gertrude  knit  her  brow  at  this  exclamation, 
she  wheeled  about  on  the  heels  of  her  clumsy  shoes,  and  screamed 
as  if  the  devil  were  after  her:  "Oi,  oi,  Gertrude,  Gertrude,  oi,  oi, 
the  meat's  burning!  The  meat's  burning." 

It  was  a  false  alarm.  The  meat  was  sizzling  quite  peacefully 
in  the  pan. 

IX 

Late  in  the  afternoon  of  a  stormy  day  in  June  Daniel  came 
home  from  the  last  rehearsal  of  the  "Harzreise,"  tired  and  out  of 
humour.  The  rehearsals  had  been  held  in  a  small  room  in  Wey- 
rauth's  Garden.  He  had  quarrelled  with  all  the  musicians  and 
with  all  the  singers,  male  and  female. 

As  he  reached  ^gydius  Place  a  shudder  suddenly  ran  through 
his  body.  He  was  forced  to  cover  his  eyes  with  his  hands  and 
stand  still  for  a  moment;  he  thought  he  would  die  from  longing 
for  a  precious  virginal  possession  which  he  had  been  so  foolish  as 
to  trifle  away. 

He  went  up  the  steps,  passed  by  his  own  apartment,  and 
climbed  on  up  to  the  apartment  of  Inspector  Jordan  and  his 
daughter  Eleanore. 

His  eye  fell  on  the  board  partition  surrounding  the  stove  and 
the  copper  cooking  utensils  that  hung  on  the  wall.  There  sat 
Eleanore,  her  arm  resting  on  the  window  sill,  her  head  on  her 
hand:  she  was  meditating — meditating  and  gaining  new  strength  as 
she  did  so.  Her  face  was  turned  toward  the  steep  fall  of  a  roof, 
the  century-old  frame-work,  grey  walls,  darkened  window  panes 
and  dilapidated  wooden  galleries,  above  which  lay  stillness  and 
a  rectangular  patch  of  sky  that  was  then  covered  with  clouds. 

"Good  evening,"  said  Daniel,  as  he  stepped  out  of  the  darkness 
into  the  dimly  lighted  room.  "What  are  you  doing,  Eleanore, 
what  are  you  thinking  about?" 

Eleanore  shuddered:  "Ah,  is  it  you,  Daniel?  You  show  your- 
self after  a  long  while?  And  ask  what  I  am  thinking  about? 
What  curiosity!  Do  you  want  to  come  into  my  room?" 

"No,  no,  sit  perfectly  still,"  he  replied,  and  prevented  her  from 
getting  up  by  touching  her  on  the  shoulder.  "Is  your  father  at 
home?" 

She  nodded.  He  drew  a  narrow  bench  from  which  he  had 
removed  the  coffee  mill  and  a  strainer  up  to  the  serving  table,  and 
sat  down  as  far  as  possible  from  Eleanore,  though  even  so  they 


222  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

were  as  close  together  as  if  they  were  sitting  opposite  each  other 
in  a  cab. 

"How  are  you  making  out?"  she  asked  with  embarrassment,  and 
without  the  remotest  display  of  warmth. 

"You  know  that  I  am  beating  a  perforated  drum,  Eleanore." 
After  a  pause  he  added:  "But  whatever  people  may  do  or  fail 
to  do,  between  us  two  there  must  be  a  clear  understanding:  Are 
you  going  to  Paris?" 

She  dropped  her  head  in  silence.  "Well,  I  could  go;  there 
is  nothing  to  prevent  me,"  she  said,  softly  and  with  hesitation. 
"But  you  see  how  it  is.  I  am  no  longer  as  I  used  to  be.  Formerly 
I  could  scarcely  picture  the  happiness  I  would  derive  from  having 
some  one  there  in  whom  I  could  confide  and  who  would  be  inter- 
ested in  me.  I  would  not  have  hesitated  for  a  moment.  But 
now?  If  I  go,  what  becomes  clear  from  my  going?  And  if  I 
stay  here,  what  will  be  clear?  I  have  already  told  you,  Daniel, 
that  I  don't  understand  you.  How  terrible  it  is  to  have  to  say 
that!  What  do  you  want  now?  How  is  all  this  going  to  come 
out?" 

"Eleanore,  do  you  recall  Benda's  last  letter?  You  yourself 
brought  it  to  me,  and  after  that  I  was  a  different  person.  He 
wrote  to  me  in  that  letter  just  as  if  he  had  never  heard  of  Gertrude, 
and  said  that  I  should  not  pass  you  by.  He  wrote  that  we  two 
were  destined  for  each  other,  and  neither  for  any  one  else  in  the 
world.  Of  course  you  recall  how  I  acted  after  reading  the  letter. 
And  even  before  that:  Do  you  remember  the  day  of  the  wedding 
when  you  put  the  myrtle  wreath  on?  Why,  I  knew  then  that  I 
had  lost  everything,  that  my  real  treasure  had  vanished.  And  even 
before  that:  Do  you  recall  that  I  found  that  Friiulein  Sylvia  von 
Erfft  had  your  complexion,  your  figure,  your  hair,  and  your  hands? 
And  even  before  that:  When  you  went  walking  with  Benda  in  the 
woods,  I  walked  along  behind,  and  took  so  much  pleasure  in  watch- 
ing you  walk,  but  I  didn't  know  it.  And  when  you  came  into  the 
room  there  in  the  Long  Row,  and  caressed  the  mask  and  sat  down 
at  the  piano  and  leaned  your  head  against  the  wood,  don't  you 
recall  how  indispensable  you  were  to  me,  to  my  soul?  The  only 
trouble  is,  I  didn't  know  it;  I  didn't  know  it." 

"Well,  there  is  nothing  to  be  done  about  all  that:  that  is  a 
by-gone  story,"  said  Eleanore,  holding  her  breath,  while  a  blush 
of  emotion  flitted  across  her  face  only  to  give  way  to  a  terrible 
paleness. 

"Do  you  believe  that  I  am  a  person  to  be  content  with  what  is 


TRES  FACIUNT  COLLEGIUM  223 

past?  Every  one,  Eleanore,  owes  himself  his  share  of  happiness, 
and  he  can  get  it  if  he  simply  makes  up  his  mind  to  it.  It  is 
not  until  he  has  neglected  it,  abandoned  it,  and  passed  it  by,  that 
his  fate  makes  a  slave  out  of  him." 

"That  is  just  what  I  do  not  understand,"  said  Eleanore,  and 
looked  into  his  face  with  a  more  cheerful  sense  of  freedom.  "It 
wounds  my  heart  to  see  you  waging  a  losing  battle  against  self- 
deception  and  ugly  defiance.  We  two  cannot  think  of  committing 
a  base  deed,  Daniel.  It  is  impossible,  isn't  it?" 

Daniel,  plainly  excited,  bent  over  nearer  to  her:  "Do  you  know 
where  I  am  standing?"  he  asked,  while  the  blue  veins  in  his 
temples  swelled  and  hammered:  "Well,  I'll  tell  you.  I  am  stand- 
ing on  a  marble  slab  above  an  abyss.  To  the  right  and  left  of  this 
abyss  are  nothing  but  blood-thirsty  wolves.  There  is  no  choice 
left  to  me  except  either  to  leap  down  into  the  abyss,  or  to  allow 
myself  to  be  torn  to  pieces,  by  the  wolves.  When  such  a  being 
as  you  comes  gliding  along  through  the  air,  a  winged  creature  like 
you,  that  can  rescue  me  and  pull  me  up  after  it,  is  there  any  ground 
for  doubt  as  to  what  should  be  done? " 

Eleanore  folded  her  arms  across  her  bosom,  and  half  closed  her 
eyes:  "Ah  no,  Daniel,"  she  said  in  a  kindly  way,  "you  are  exag- 
gerating, really.  You  see  everything  too  white  and  too  black:  A 
winged  creature,  I?  Where,  pray,  are  my  wings?  And  wolves? 
All  these  silly  little  people — wolves?  Oh  no,  Daniel.  And 
blood-thirsty?  Listen,  Daniel,  that  is  going  quite  too  far;  don't 
you  think  so  yourself?" 

"Don't  crush  my  feelings,  Eleanore!"  cried  Daniel,  in  a  sup- 
pressed tone  and  with  passionate  fierceness:  "Don't  crush  my  feel- 
ings, for  they  are  all  I  have  left.  You  are  not  capable  of  thinking 
as  you  have  just  been  talking,  you  cannot  think  that  low,  you  are 
not  capable  of  such  languid,  ordinary  feelings.  The  over-tone! 
The  over-tone!  Think  a  little!  Can't  you  see  them  gritting 
their  teeth  at  me?  Can't  you  hear  them  howling  day  and  night? 
Can  you  possibly  say  that  they  are  kind  or  compassionate?  Or  are 
they  willing  to  be  good  and  great  when  one  comes?  Do  you 
have  confidence  in  a  single  one  of  them?  Have  they  not  even 
dragged  your  good  name  into  the  mire?  Are  any  of  the  things 
that  are  sacred  to  you  and  to  me  sacred  to  them?  Can  they  be 
moved  the  one-thousandth  part  of  an  inch  by  your  distress  or  my 
distress  or  the  distress  of  any  human  being?  Is  not  the  slime  of 
slander  thick  upon  their  tongues?  Is  not  your  smile  a  thorn  in 
their  flesh?  Do  they  not  envy  me  the  little  I  have  and  for 


224  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

which  I  have  flayed  myself?  Don't  they  envy  me  my  music,  which 
they  do  not  understand,  and  which  they  hate  because  they  do 
not  understand  it?  Would  it  not  fill  them  with  joy  if  I  had 
to  make  my  living  beating  stones  on  the  public  highway  or  cleaning 
out  sewers?  Do  they  find  it  possible  to  pardon  me  for  my  life 
and  the  things  that  make  up  my  life?  And  yet  you  say  there  are 
no  wolves?  That  they  are  not  wolves?  Tell  me  that  you  are 
afraid  of  them,  that  you  do  not  wish  to  turn  them  against  your- 
self; but  don't  tell  me  that  you  are  committing  an  evil  act  when 
I  call  you  to  me,  you  with  your  wings,  and  you  come." 

His  arms  were  stretched  out  toward  her  on  the  top  of  the  kitchen 
table;  they  were  trembling  to  the  very  tips  of  his  fingers. 

"The  evil  deed,  Daniel,"  whispered  Eleanore,  "hasn't  anything 
to  do  with  these  people;  it  was  committed  against  the  higher  law 
of  morals,  against  our  feeling  of  right  usage  and  established 
honour.  .  .  ." 

"False,"  he  hissed,  "false!  They  have  made  you  believe  that. 
They  have  preached  that  to  you  for  centuries  and  centuries;  your 
mother,  your  grand-mother,  your  great-grand-mother,  they  have  all 
been  telling  you  that.  It  is  false;  it  is  a  lie;  it  is  all  a  lie.  It  is 
with  this  very  lie  that  they  support  their  power  and  protect  their 
organisation.  It  is  truth  on  the  contrary  that  fills  my  heart,  fills 
it  with  joy,  and  helps  me  along.  What  nature  offers,  obedience 
to  nature,  that  is  truth.  Truth  lies  in  your  thoughts,  in  your  feel- 
ings, girl,  in  your  choked  feelings,  in  your  blood,  in  the  'yes'  you 
speak  in  your  dreams.  Of  course  I  know  that  they  need  their  lie, 
for  they  must  be  organised,  the  wolves;  they  must  go  in  packs, 
otherwise  they  are  impotent.  But  I  have  only  my  truth,  only  my 
truth  as  I  stand  on  the  marble  slab  above  the  abyss." 

"Your  truth,  Daniel,"  said  Eleanore,  "your  truth.  But  your 
truth  is  not  my  truth." 

"No,  Eleanore?  No?  Not  yours?  What  then  is  the  use  of 
my  talking  with  you?  And  even  if  everything  else  were  false- 
hood and  error,  I  am  as  convinced  as  I  can  be  that  my  truth  is  also 
your  ;ruth." 

"You  can't  stand  out  against  the  whole  world,"  said  Eleanore 
in  anguish,  "you  are  after  all  in  the  world  yourself." 

"Yes,  I  will  take  my  stand  against  the  whole  world,"  he  said, 
"that  is  precisely  what  I  have  made  up  my  mind  to  do.  I  will 
pay  them  back  in  their  own  coin.  Just  as  they  have  all  stood 
against  me,  just  so  will  I  stand  against  them.  I  am  no  compromiser, 
no  treaty-maker,  no  haggler,  no  beggar.  I  live  according  to  my 


TRES  FACIUNT  COLLEGIUM  225 

own  law.  I  musty  where  other  people  merely  should  or  may,  or 
may  not.  Whoever  does  not  comprehend  that  has  nothing  in  com- 
mon, one  way  or  the  other,  with  me." 

She  was  terrified  at  the  presumptuousness  of  his  words;  and  yet 
there  was  a  feeling  in  her  of  joy  and  pride:  she  felt  a  desire  to 
be  for  him,  to  be  with  him.  If  he  was  fighting  against  the  very 
power  that  would  in  the  end  overcome  him,  he  was  doing  it  for 
her  sake.  She  did  not  feel,  therefore,  that  she  had  the  right  to 
withdraw  from  him.  The  thing  about  it  all  that  gave  her  a 
wonderful  feeling  of  relief,  and  at  the  same  time  made  her  morally 
flabby  and  carried  her  away,  was  the  passion  of  his  will  and  the 
undaunted  assurance  of  his  feelings. 

But  their  eyes  chanced  to  meet;  and  in  the  eyes  of  each  there 
was  the  name  of  Gertrude. 

Gertrude  stood  between  them  in  living  form.  Everything  they 
had  said  had  proceeded  from  her  and  returned  to  her.  That 
Daniel  was  not  thinking  of  annulling  his  marriage,  that  he  could 
not  think  of  it,  Eleanore  knew.  A  child  was  expected;  who  could 
reject  the  mother  under  these  circumstances?  How  would  it  be 
possible,  poor  as  they  were,  to  expose  both  mother  and  child  to  the 
inevitable  misery  that  would  follow  annulment  of  the  marriage? 
Daniel  could  not  do  this,  and  Eleanore  knew  it. 

But  she  also  knew,  for  she  knew  her  sister,  that  separation  from 
Daniel  would  mean  her  death.  She  knew  too  that  Daniel  con- 
sidered his  marriage  to  Gertrude  as  indissoluble,  not  only  because 
of  his  knowledge  of  her  character,  but  because  there  was  in  his 
life  with  Gertrude  something  that  is  quite  independent  of  passions, 
views,  and  decisions,  something  that  binds  even  in  hate  and  binds 
even  more  firmly  in  despair. 

Eleanore  knew  all  this.  She  knew  that  Daniel  knew  it.  And 
if  she  drew  the  only  conclusion  that  could  be  drawn  from  his 
argument  and  his  state  of  mind,  she  knew  what  he  demanded  of 
her. 

He  was  demanding  that  she  give  herself  up  to  him.  Of  this 
there  could  be  not  a  shred  of  doubt. 

But  how?  Secretly?  Could  that  produce  happiness?  With 
the  understanding  of  Gertrude?  Could  Gertrude  endure  such  a 
thought,  even  if  she  were  as  magnanimous  as  a  saint?  Where  was 
the  way  that  could  be  followed?  Where  was  there  an  angle  from 
which  embarrassment,  anxiety,  and  ruin  were  not  ready  to  leap 
forth  without  warning? 

She  bowed  her  head,  and  covered   it  with   her  hands.     She  sat 


226  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

in  this  position  for  a  long  while.  Darkness  settled  down  over 
the  roofs  of  the  houses. 

Suddenly  she  got  up,  reached  him  her  hand,  smiled  with  tears 
in  her  eyes,  and  said  with  a  last  attempt  to  escape  the  horrible 
consequences,  "Briiderlein.1  .  .  ."  She  spoke  the  word  in  a  tone 
of  longing  fervour  and  half-humorous  appealing. 

He  shook  his  head  sadly,  but  took  her  hand  and  held  it  tenderly 
between  his. 

Her  face  became  clouded;  it  was  like  a  landscape  at  the  coming 
of  night.  Her  eyes,  turned  to  one  side,  saw  the  trees  of  a  great 
garden,  an  ugly  old  woman  sitting  by  a  hedge,  and  two  little 
girls  who  looked  into  the  setting  sun  with  fear  in  their  hearts. 

There  was  a  noise;  she  and  Daniel  were  startled.  In  the  door- 
way stood  Philippina  Schimmelweis.  Her  eyes  glistened  like  the 
skin  of  a  reptile  that  has  just  crept  up  from  out  of  the  bog. 

Daniel  went  down  to  his  apartment. 


For  nine  years  the  rococo  hall  in  the  Auffenberg  home  had  been 
closed  to  festive  celebrations  of  every  kind.  It  took  a  long,  tedious 
exchange  of  letters  between  the  secretary  of  the  Baron  living  in 
Rome  and  the  secretary  of  the  Baroness  to  get  the  permission  of  the 
former  to  use  the  hall. 

The  indignation  at  Nothafft's  work  was  general.  The  members 
of  the  social  set  could  hardly  contain  themselves,  while  the 
amateurs  and  specially  invited  guests  were  likewise  but  little  edified. 
The  chief  diversion  of  the  evening,  in  fact,  was  to  see  the  com- 
poser himself  conduct.  At  the  sight  of  the  jumping  and  sprawling 
fellow,  Herr  Zo'llner,  councillor  of  the  consistory,  almost  burst 
with  laughter. 

Old  Count  Schlemm-Nottheim,  who  not  only  had  a  liking  for 
pornographic  literature  but  was  also  known  to  drink  a  quarter  of  a 
litre  of  Dr.  Rosa's  balsam  of  life  every  afternoon,  declared  that 
the  ensemble  playing  of  all  the  instruments  represented  by  the 
show-booths  at  the  annual  fair  was  an  actual  musical  revelation  in 
comparison  with  this  Dutch  concert  of  rogues'  marches.  Judge 
Braun  of  the  Supreme  Court  gave  it  as  his  candid  opinion  that 
there  was  evidently  a  conspiracy  against  good  taste. 

Remarks  of  this  kind  were,  of  course,  made  behind  screens  and 

i  "Little  brother." 


TRES  FACIUNT  COLLEGIUM  227 

in  the  corners.  In  order  not  to  offend  the  Baroness,  there  was  a 
goodly  measure  of  seemingly  cordial  applause.  The  guests  and 
artists  then  assembled  around  a  huge  table  arranged  in  the  shape 
of  a  horseshoe. 

Count  Schlemm-Nottheim  was  the  table  companion  of  the 
Baroness;  he  had  her  tell  him  who  the  various  personages  from  the 
world  of  art  were.  He  asked  who  was  the  woman  of  such  interest- 
ing melancholy  sitting  next  to  Major  Bellmann.  He  was  told 
that  that  was  the  wife  of  the  composer.  His  wife?  She  is  not 
at  all  bad;  life  with  her  would  be  rather  worth  while.  And  who 
was  the  woman  between  old  Herold  and  the  Frenchman?  A 
charming  little  creature:  she  had  eyes  like  the  Lake  of  Liguria  and 
hands  like  a  princess.  That  was  the  sister  of  the  composer's  wife. 
Sister?  You  don't  tell  me!  A  jolly  fine  family;  worth  the  sup- 
port of  any  man. 

Toasts  were  drunk.  Herr  Ehrenreich,  the  wholesale  merchant, 
drank  to  the  health  of  the  creator  of  the  "Harzreise";  the  Count 
to  the  ladies  present. 

Herr  Carovius  created  a  sensation.  He  sat  with  the  members 
of  the  "Liedertafel";  they  had  sung  in  the  chorus;  and  they  were 
ashamed  of  him,  for  he  conducted  himself  in  a  most  unseemly 
fashion. 

He  had  somehow  managed  to  get  hold  of  a  glove  Eleanore  had 
lost,  and  possibly  it  was  this  that  made  him  so  convivial.  He 
picked  up  an  almond  shell  from  the  serving  tray,  and  threw  it  at 
Fraulein  Varini.  He  let  his  leery,  lascivious  eyes  roam  about  over 
the  cut  glass  and  the  decorations  of  the  hall,  and  never  once  grew 
tired  of  praising  the  wealth  and  splendour  of  the  house.  He 
acted  as  though  he  were  quite  at  home.  He  raised  his  wine  glass, 
and  declared  that  he  was  charmed  by  the  flavour  and  colour  of  the 
costly,  precious  juice  from  the  grape:  he  tried  to  give  the  impression 
that  he  knew  the  Auffenberg  wine  cellar  from  years  of  intimate 
association  with  it. 

Then  it  happened  that  through  a  hasty,  awkward  movement,  he 
upset  his  plate;  a  rivulet  of  rich  brown  gravy  ran  down  over  his 
white  vest.  He  became  silent;  he  retired  within  himself.  He 
dipped  his  napkin  in  the  water,  and  rubbed  and  rubbed.  The 
waiters  tittered.  He  buttoned  up  his  coat,  and  looked  like  a 
show  window  in  the  dead  of  night. 

The  eyes  of  the  waiters  were  also  given  the  privilege  of  feasting 
on  another  rare  social  phenomenon.  They  noticed  that  Kapell- 
meister Nothafft  was  sitting  at  the  table  in  his  stocking  feet.  His 


228  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

patent  leather  shoes  had  hurt  him  so  much  that  he  made  short 
work  of  it  and  took  them  off  during  the  dinner.  There  they 
stood  without  master  or  servant,  one  at  the  right,  the  other  at  the 
left  of  his  disencumbered  feet.  Whenever  the  waiters  passed  by, 
they  would  cast  one  furtive  but  profitable  glance  under  the  table, 
and  bite  their  lips  to  keep  from  bursting  out  in  laughter. 

This  rude  offence  to  social  dignity  was  not  unknown  to  the 
other  dinner  guests.  They  whispered,  smiled,  shrugged  their 
shoulders,  and  shook  their  heads.  Daniel  made  no  effort  to  con- 
ceal his  bootlessness  when  the  guests  rose  to  leave  the  table;  without 
giving  the  astonishment  of  his  companions  a  single  thought,  he 
once  more  drew  the  patent  leather  torturers  on  to  his  extremities. 
But  he  had  made  a  mistake:  he  had  gambled  and  lost. 

The  news  of  the  extraordinary  event  was  fully  exploited  on  the 
following  day.  It  was  carried  from  house  to  house,  accumulated 
momentous  charm  in  its  course,  passed  from  the  regions  of  the  high 
to  those  of  the  less  high  and  quite  low,  and  provoked  storms  of 
laughter  everywhere.  No  one  had  anything  to  say  about  the 
symphony;  everybody  was  fully  informed  concerning  the  patent 
leather  episode. 

XI 

On  the  way  home  Daniel  walked  with  Eleanore.  Gertrude 
followed  at  some  distance  with  M.  Riviere;  she  could  not  walk 
rapidly. 

"How  did  you  find  it,  Eleanore?  Didn't  you  have  the  feeling 
that  you  were  at  a  feast  of  corpses? " 

"Dear,"  she  murmured;  they  walked  on. 

After  they  had  gone  along  for  some  time  in  perfect  silence, 
they  came  to  a  narrow  gateway.  Eleanore  suddenly  felt  that  she 
could  no  longer  endure  Daniel's  mute  questioning.  She  pulled 
her  silk  veil  closer  to  her  cheeks,  and  said:  "Give  me  time!  Don't 
hurry  me!  Please  give  me  time!" 

"If  I  hadn't  given  you  time,  my  dear  girl,  I  should  not  have 
deserved  this  moment,"  he  replied. 

"I  cannot,  I  cannot,"  she  said,  with  a  sigh  of  despair.  She  had 
only  one  hope,  one  ray  of  hope  left,  and  her  whole  soul  was  fixed 
on  that.  But  she  was  obliged  to  act  in  silence. 

Standing  in  the  living  room  with  Gertrude,  Daniel's  eye  fell 
on  the  mask  of  Zingarella;  it  had  been  decorated  with  rose  twigs. 
Under  the  green  young  leaves  fresh  buds  shone  forth;  they  hung 


TRES  FACIUNT  COLLEGIUM  229 

around  the  white  stucco  of  the  mask  like  so  many  little  red  lanterns. 
"Who  did  that? "  he  asked. 

"Eleanore  was  here  in  the  afternoon;  she  did  it,"  replied 
Gertrude. 

His  burning  eyes  were  riveted  on  the  mask,  when  Gertrude 
stepped  up  to  him,  threw  her  arms  around  him,  and  in  the  fulness 
of  her  feelings  exclaimed:  "Daniel,  your  work  was  wonderful, 
wonderful!" 

"So?  Did  you  like  it?  I  am  glad  to  hear  it,"  he  said,  in  a 
tone  of  dry  conventionality. 

"The  people  don't  grasp  it,"  she  said  gently,  and  then  added 
with  a  blush:  "But  I  understand  it;  I  understand  it,  for  it  belongs 
to  me." 

The  following  day  he  laid  the  score  of  the  "Harzreise"  together 
with  the  words  in  a  big  old  chest,  and  locked  it.  It  was  like  a 
funeral. 


XII 

In  the  dark,  winding  alleys  behind  the  city  wall  stand  little 
houses  with  large  numbers  and  coloured  lanterns.  They  are  filled 
with  a  sweetish,  foul  odour,  and  have  been  laboriously  built  up 
out  of  dilapidated  lumber-rooms.  From  the  cracks  in  the  closed 
blinds  come  forth,  night  after  night,  the  sounds  of  shrill  laughter. 
Those  who  enter  are  received  by  half-nude  monsters,  and  are  made 
to  sit  down  on  monstrous  chairs  and  sofas  covered  with  red 
plush. 

The  citizen  calls  these  places  dens  of  vice.  Between  Friday 
and  Sunday  he  thinks  with  lustful  horror  of  the  inhabitants  with 
their  bloated  or  emaciated  bodies  and  the  sad  or  intoxicated  stare 
of  their  eyes. 

Herr  Carovius  wended  his  way  to  this  quarter  of  the  city. 
Because  it  was  only  a  shadow  which  he  embraced  in  hours  when 
his  inflamed  imagination,  vitiated  by  all  the  poisons  of  the  earth, 
conjured  up  a  human  body,  he  was  angry;  now  he  went  there,  and 
bought  himself  a  real  human  body. 

After  he  had  been  in  a  half  a  dozen  of  these  houses,  had  been 
jubilantly  greeted,  and  then  thrown  out  to  the  accompaniment  of 
bawdy  abuse,  he  at  last  found  what  he  had  been  looking  for:  a 
creature  whose  cunning  had  not  entirely  been  lost,  who  still  had 
the  features  of  a  daughter  of  man,  and  whose  figure  and  character 
still  had  the  power  to  call  up  a  memory,  provided  one  were  firmly 


230  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

decided  to  see  what  one  wished  to  see  and  to  forget  what  one 
wished  to  forget. 

Her  name  was  Lena,  charming  reminder  of  a  desired  reality! 
He  went  with  her  as  she  left  the  circle  of  her  companions,  and 
followed  her  into  the  wretched  hole  between  winding  stairs  and 
attic  rooms.  He  rattled  the  coins  in  his  pocket,  and  gave  his 
orders.  The  nymph  had  to  put  on  a  street  dress,  set  a  modest  hat 
on  her  head,  and  draw  a  veil  over  her  rouged  face.  Thereupon  he 
went  up  to  her,  spoke  to  her  courteously,  and  kissed  her  hand. 
He  had  never  in  his  life  acted  in  so  polite  and  chivalric  a  fashion 
in  the  presence  of  a  woman. 

The  prostitute  was  frightened;  she  ran  away.  She  had  to  be 
given  instructions;  these  were  given  her  by  the  madame  of  the 
house;  for  Herr  Carovius  was  rattling  the  coins  in  his  pocket. 
"You  will  have  to  be  patient  and  indulgent;  we  are  not  prepared 
for  such  refined  guests  here." 

He  returned.  Lena  had  been  told  what  to  do.  She  soon  fell 
into  her  role. 

"To  be  frank,"  he  said  to  Lena,  "I  am  inexperienced-  in  the 
arts  of  love.  I  am  too  proud  to  kowtow  to  the  berobed  and 
bodiced  idol.  A  woman  is  a  woman,  and  a  man  is  a  man.  They 
delude  themselves  and  each  other,  or  try  to,  into  believing  that 
each  woman  is  a  special  person,  and  each  man  a  man  to  himself. 
Idiocy!" 

The  prostitute  grinned. 

He  walked  back  and  forth;  the  room  was  just  large  enough  to 
allow  him  to  take  three  steps.  He  recalled  the  expression  on 
Eleanore's  face  during  the  performance  of  the  symphony;  his 
greedy  eyes  had  rested  on  her  all  the  while.  He  became  enraged: 
"You  don't  imagine  that  progress  can  be  made  by  such  amateurish 
efforts?"  he  said  with  a  roar.  "It  is  all  hocus-pocus.  There  is  as 
a  matter  of  fact  no  such  thing  as  progress  in  art,  any  more  than 
there  is  progress  in  the  course  of  the  stars.  Listen!" 

He  bellowed  forth  the  first  motif  from  the  "Sonata  quasi  una 
fantasia"  of  Mozart:  "Listen  to  this:  Da — dada — da — daddaa!  Is 
it  possible  to  progress  beyond  that?  Don't  let  them  make  a  fool 
of  you,  my  angel.  Be  honest  with  yourself.  He  has  hypnotised 
you.  He  has  turned  your  unsuspecting  heart  upside  down.  Look 
at  me!  Are  you  afraid  of  me?  I  will  do  all  in  my  power  for 
you.  Give  me  your  hand.  Speak  to  me!" 

The  prostitute  was  obliged  to  stretch  out  her  arms.  He  sat 
down  beside  her  with  a  solemn  ceremoniousness.  Then  he  removed 


TRES  FACIUNT  COLLEGIUM  231 

the  pin  from  her  hat,  and  laid  the  hat  tenderly  to  one  side.     She 
had  to  lean  her  head  on  his  shoulder. 

With  that  he  fell  into  a  dreamy  meditation. 


XIII 

Philippina  came  up  to  Gertrude  in  the  living  room.  Daniel 
was  not  at  home.  Philippina  was  humming  the  latest  street  song, 
the  refrain  of  which  ran  as  follows: 

Draft  di,  Model,  draft  dlt 
Morgen  kommt  der  Mahdi. 

"There  it  is,"  said  Philippina,  and  threw  a  ba  of  yarn  on 
the  table. 

Gertrude  had  yielded  to  the  girl's  importunities,  and  was  address- 
ing her  now  with  the  familiar  "thou"  and  allowing  Philippina 
to  do  the  same  in  speaking  to  her.  "We  are  after  all  relatives, 
you  know,  Gertrude,"  said  Philippina. 

Gertrude  was  afraid  of  Philippina;  but  she  had  thus  far  found 
no  means  of  defending  herself  against  her  exaggerated  eagerness 
to  help  her  with  the  housework.  And  she  felt  in  Philippina's 
presence  what  she  felt  in  the  presence  of  no  one  else — a  sense  of 
shame  at  her  own  condition. 

Philippina,  in  fact,  saw  something  indecent  in  Gertrude's  preg- 
nancy; when  she  talked  to  her  she  always  held  her  head  up  and 
looked  into  space;  her  action  was  quite  conspicuous. 

"Oh,  but  ain't  people  impudent,"  Philippina  began,  after  she 
had  taken  a  loutish  position  on  a  chair.  "The  clerk  over  in  the 
store  asked  me  whether  there  wasn't  something  up  between  Daniel 
and  Eleanore.  What  d'ye  think  of  that?  Fresh,  yes?  You  bet 
I  give  him  all  that  was  coming  to  him!" 

The  needle  in  Gertrude's  fingers  stopped  moving.  It  was  not 
the  first  time  that  Philippina  had  made  such  insinuating  remarks. 
To-day  she  would  come  up  to  Gertrude,  and  whisper  to  her  that 
Daniel  was  upstairs  with  Eleanore;  yesterday  she  had  said  in  a 
tone  of  affected  sympathy  that  Eleanore  looked  so  run  down. 
Then  she  gave  a  detailed  report  of  what  this  person  and  that  person 
had  said;  then  she  turned  into  a  champion  of  good  morals  and 
gentle  manners,  and  remarked  that  you  ought  not  offend  people. 

Her  every  third  word  was  "people."  She  said  she  knew  what 
a  faultless  character  Eleanore  had  and  how  Daniel  loved  his  wife, 


232  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

but  people!  And  after  all  you  couldn't  scratch  everybody's  eyes 
out  who  annoyed  you  with  dubious  questions;  if  you  did,  there 
would  soon  be  very  few  eyes  left. 

Philippina's  bangs  had  acquired  an  unusual  length;  they  covered 
her  whole  forehead  down  to  her  eyelashes.  The  glances  she  cast 
at  Gertrude  had  on  this  account  something  especially  malevolent 
about  them.  "She  is  not  so  certain  of  herself  and  her  family 
after  all,"  thought  Philippina,  and  made  a  lewd  gesture  with  her 
\egs  as  she  sprawled  on  the  chair. 

"You  know,  I  think  Daniel  ought  to  be  more  cautious,"  she 
said  with  her  rasping  voice.  "This  being  together  all  alone  for 
hours  at  a  time  ain't  going  to  do  no  good;  no  good  at  all,  I  say. 
And  the  two  are  always  running  after  each  other;  if  it's  not  her, 
it's  him.  If  you  happen  to  take  'em  by  surprise,  they  jump  like 
criminals.  It's  been  going  on  this  way  for  six  weeks,  day  after 
day.  Do  you  think  that's  right?  You  don't  need  to  put  up  with 
it,  Gertrude,"  she  said  in  conclusion,  making  a  sad  attempt  to  look 
coquettish.  Then  she  cast  her  eyes  to  the  floor,  and  looked  as 
innocent  as  a  child. 

Gertrude's  heart  grew  cold.  Her  confidence  in  Daniel  was 
unfaltering,  but  the  venomous  remarks  made  to  her  left  her  without 
peace  of  mind  or  body;  she  could  not  think  clearly.  The  very 
fact  that  such  things  were  being  said  about  Daniel  and  Eleanore, 
and  that  words  failed  her  to  stop  them  because  from  the  very 
beginning  she  had  borne  it  all  with  the  self-assurance  that  naturally 
springs  from  contempt  for  gossip,  only  tended  to  make  her  grief 
all  the  more  bitter. 

How  hollow  any  objection  on  her  part  would  have  sounded! 
How  fatuous  and  ineffective  a  rebuke  from  her  would  have  been! 
Could  she  muzzle  these  wicked,  slanderous  tongues  by  referring  to 
the  peculiarities  of  Daniel's  nature?  Could  he  be  expected  to  go 
to  Philippina  and  give  an  account  of  himself?  A  contemptuous 
smile  came  to  her  face  when  she  pondered  on  such  possibilities. 

And  yet,  why  was  she  heart-sore?  Was  it  because  she  was  at 
last  beginning  to  realise  that  she  was  unloved? 

Involuntarily  her  eyes  fell  on  the  mask;  it  was  still  covered 
with  the  withered  rose  twigs.  She  got  up  and  removed  them. 
Her  hand  trembled  as  if  she  were  committing  some  evil  act. 

"Go  home,  Philippina,  I  don't  need  you  any  more,"  she  said. 

"Oi,  it  is  late,  ain't  it?  I  must  be  going,"  cried  Philippina. 
"Don't  worry,  Gertrude,"  she  said  by  way  of  consolation.  "And 
don't  complain  of  me  to  your  husband;  he'll  git  ugly  if  you  do. 


TRES  FACIUNT  COLLEGIUM  233 

If  you  say  anything  bad  about  me,  there's  going  to  be  trouble  here, 
I  say.  I  am  a  perfect  fool;  people  git  out  of  my  way,  they  do. 
I've  got  a  wicked  mouth,  I  have;  there's  no  stopping  it.  Well, 
good  night." 

She  rubbed  her  hands  down  over  her  skirt,  as  if  she  were 
trying  to  smooth  out  the  wrinkles;  there  was  an  element  of  comic 
caution  in  what  she  did. 

Out  on  the  street  she  began  to  hum  again: 

Dratf   di,  Madel,  drah?  dty 
Morgen  kommt  der  Mahdi. 

XIV 

When  Daniel  came  home,  it  was  late;  but  he  sat  down  by 
the  lamp  in  his  room  and  began  to  read  Jean  Paul's  "Titan."  In 
the  course  of  time  his  thoughts  liberated  themselves  from  the  book 
and  went  their  own  way.  He  got  up,  walked  over  to  the  piano, 
raised  the  lid,  and  struck  a  chord;  he  listened  with  closed  eyes: 
it  seemed  that  some  one  was  calling  him.  It  was  a  sultry  night; 
the  stillness  was  painful. 

Again  he  struck  the  chord:  bells  from  the  lower  world.  They 
rang  up  through  the  green,  grey  mists,  each  distinct  and  delicate. 
Each  tone  sent  forth  its  accompanying  group  like  sparks  from  a 
skyrocket.  Those  related  by  the  ties  of  harmony  joined;  those 
that  were  alien  fell  back  and  down.  And  up  in  the  distant,  inac- 
cessible heights  there  rang  out  with  deceiving  clarity,  like  the  last 
vision  of  earthly  perfection,  the  melody  of  love,  the  melody  of 
Eleanore. 

Yet,  some  one  was  calling  him;  but  from  where?  His  wife? 
The  distant,  gloomy,  waiting  one?  He  closed  the  piano;  the  echo 
of  the  noise  made  thereby  rebounded  from  the  church  wall 
through  his  window. 

He  put  out  the  lamp,  went  into  his  bedroom,  and  undressed 
by  the  light  of  the  moon.  The  border  of  the  curtain  was  em- 
broidered with  heavy  Vitruvian  scrolls,  the  shadows  of  which  were 
reflected  on  the  floor;  they  made  jagged,  goalless  paths.  All  these 
lines  consisted  after  all  of  only  one  line. 

As  he  lay  in  bed  his  heart  began  to  hammer.  Suddenly  he 
knew,  without  looking,  that  Gertrude  was  not  asleep;  that  she 
was  lying  there  staring  at  the  ceiling  just  as  he  was.  "Gertrude!" 
he  called. 


234  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

From  the  slight  rustling  of  the  pillow  he  concluded  that  she 
turned  her  face  to  him. 

"Don't  you  hear  me?" 

"Yes,  Daniel." 

"You  must  give  me  some  advice;  you  must  help  me:  help  me  and 
your  sister,  otherwise  I  cannot  say  what  may  happen." 

He  stopped  and  listened,  but  there  was  not  a  stir:  the  stillness 
was  absolute. 

"It  is  at  times  possible  to  remain  silent  out  of  consideration 
for  others,"  he  continued,  "but  if  the  silence  is  maintained  too 
long,  deception  follows,  and  falsehood  does  not  fail.  But  of  what 
use  is  candour  if  it  thrusts  a  knife  into  the  heart  of  another  merely 
in  order  to  prepare  an  unblocked  path  for  him  who  is  candid? 
What  good  does  it  do  to  confess  if  the  other  does  not  understand? 
Two  are  already  bleeding  to  death;  shall  the  third  meet  with  the 
same  fate  merely  in  order  to  say  that  the  matter  was  talked  over? 
The  truth  is,  too  many  words  have  already  been  spoken,  gruesome, 
shameless  words,  at  the  sound  of  which  the  innocent  night  of 
the  senses  vanishe-s.  And  must  one  bleed  to  death  when  it  becomes 
clearer  and  clearer  that  those  are  not  eternal  laws  against  which 
war  is  being  waged?  How  can  I,  dwarf  that  I  am,  attack  eternal 
laws?  No,  it  is  the  frail,  mutable  customs  of  human  society — ? 
Are  you  listening,  Gertrude?" 

A  "yes"  that  sounded  like  a  note  from  a  bird  on  a  distant  hill 
greeted  his  ears:  it  was  the  answer  to  his  question. 

"I  have  reached  the  point  where  silence  is  no  longer  thinkable: 
there  is  no  going  any  farther  without  you.  I  will  neither  exag- 
gerate nor  have  recourse  to  conventional  phrases:  I  will  not  speak 
of  passion  nor  say  that  it  could  not  be  helped.  It  is  just  barely 
possible  that  everything  can  be  helped;  that  a  man  could  always 
have  done  differently  if  he  had  begun  soon  enough.  But  who 
can  ever  tell  what  the  future  may  bring?  And  passion?  There 
are  many  varieties  of  passion.  It  is  the  term  that  every  swain, 
washed  and  unwashed,  uses  in  referring  to  his  lusts.  I  had  never 
felt  a  passion  for  which  a  woman  was  guilty.  But  now  one  has 
seized  me  with  hide  and  hair.  I  had  imagined  that  I  could  get 
out  of  it  and  not  bring  you  into  it;  impossible!  I  am  burning 
up  with  this  passion,  Gertrude,  my  whole  being  has  been  changed 
by  it;  and  if  help  is  not  given  me,  I  will  be  ruined." 

For  a  time  there  was  a  death-like  stillness  in  the  room;  then 
he  continued. 

"But  where  is  help  to  come  from?      It  is  strange;  never  until 


TRES  FACIUNT  COLLEGIUM  235 

this  thing  happened  did  I  know  what  holds  us  two  together,  you 
and  me.  Threads  are  being  spun  back  and  forth  between  us  which 
no  hand  may  touch  without  withering,  as  it  is  written  in  the 
Bible.  There  is  a  secret,  a  sacred  secret,  and  if  1  offended  it  I 
would  feel  as  though  I  had  strangled  the  unborn  child  in  your 
womb;  and  not  only  the  child  in  your  womb,  but  all  the  unborn 
children  in  my  own  breast.  There  is  in  the  life  of  each  man  a 
woman  in  whom  his  own  mother  becomes  young  again,  and  to 
whom  he  is  bound  by  an  unseen,  indestructible,  umbilical  cord. 
Face  to  face  with  this  woman,  his  love,  great  or  small,  even  his 
hate,  his  indifference,  becomes  a  phantom,  just  as  everything  that 
we  give  out  becomes  a  phantom  compared  with  what  is  given  to  us. 
And  there  is  another  woman  who  is  my  own  creation,  the  fruit 
of  my  dreams;  she  is  my  picture;  I  have  created  her  from  ray 
own  blood;  she  lay  in  me  just  as  the  seed  lay  in  the  bud.  And  she 
must  be  mine  once  she  has  been  unveiled  and  made  known  to  me, 
or  I  will  perish  of  loneliness  and  maddened  longing." 

The  extravagant  man  pressed  his  face  to  the  pillow  and  groaned: 
"She  must  be  mine,  or  I  will  never  get  up  from  this  bed.  But 
if  my  way  to  her  passes  over  you,  Gertrude,  I  would  have  to  cry 
out  with  Faust:  'Oh,  had  I  never  been  born!' 

Gertrude  never  uttered  a  sound.  Minute  after  minute  passed  by. 
Daniel,  growing  calmer,  listened  to  see  if  he  could  not  hear  some 
sound  in  the  room.  He  heard  nothing.  The  silence  of  his  wife 
began  to  fill  him  with  anxiety;  he  rose  up  in  bed.  The  moon 
had  gone  down ;  it  was  pitch  dark.  He  felt  around  for  some 
matches,  and  lighted  a  candle.  Holding  it  in  his  hand,  he  bent 
over  Gertrude.  She  was  as  pale  as  death;  she  was  looking  at  the 
ceiling  with  wide-opened  eyes* 

"Put  the  candle  out,  Daniel,"  she  whispered,  "I  have  some- 
thing to  say  to  you." 

He  put  the  candle  out,  and  set  it  away. 

"Give  me  your  hand,  Daniel." 

He  felt  for  her  hand;  he  took  hold  of  it.  It  was  ice  cold; 
he  laid  it  on  his  breast. 

"May  I  stay  with  you,  Daniel?  Will  you  tolerate  me  in  your 
home? " 

"Tolerate?  Gertrude,  tolerate?"  he  asked,  in  a  lifeless,  tone- 
less voice.  "You  are  my  wife,  in  the  presence  of  God  my  wife," 
he  added,  in  deadened  memory  of  the  words  of  another. 

"I   will  become  your  mother  made  young  again,  as  you  wish." 

"Yes,  Gertrude,  but  how?" 


236  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

"I  will  help  you,  you  and  Eleanore.  The  hearts  of  you  two 
shall  not  bleed  to  death  because  of  me.  Let  me  stay;  that  is 
all  I  ask." 

"That  is  more  easily  said  than  done,  Gertrude."  He  pressed 
close  up  to  her,  took  her  in  his  arms,  and  sobbed  with  unexpected 
violence. 

"It  is  hard;  yes,  it  is  hard.  But  your  heart  must  not  be  allowed 
to  bleed  on  my  account." 

His  head  lay  on  her  breast;  he  was  seized  with  convulsions  of 
grief  that  would  not  let  him  go  until  break  of  day. 

Then  all  of  a  sudden  the  words  came  like  a  scream  from 
Gertrude's  lips:  "I  too  am  a  creature." 

He  embraced  her  with  warmth;  and  she  murmured:  "It  is  hard, 
Daniel,  but  be  of  good  cheer,  be  of  good  cheer." 

xv 

Pflaum,  the  apothecary,  had  begun  to  feel  cramped  in  his  house 
near  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  He  had  looked  at  several 
houses  in  the  last  week  or  two,  and  had  finally  decided  on  the 
Schimmelweis  property,  which  was  now  for  sale.  The  apothecary 
shop  was  to  remain  for  the  time  being  at  its  present  location,  and 
Jason  Philip  was  likewise  to  keep  his  store  and  his  residence.  Herr 
Pflaum,  being  the  landlord,  intended  to  occupy  the  first  and  second 
floors;  he  had  a  large  family. 

One  beautiful  August  afternoon,  the  two  men — the  apothecary 
and  the  bookseller — left  the  office  of  Judge  Riibsam,  where  they 
had  gone  to  sign  the  papers  transferring  the  mortgage  on  the 
Schimmelweis  property.  A  cloudless  sky,  already  tinted  with  the 
blue  of  the  descending  sun,  shone  over  the  city. 

Herr  Pflaum  looked  the  picture  of  happiness:  his  troubles 
seemed  all  to  be  behind  him;  he  was  manifestly  facing  the  future 
without  fear  and  without  care.  Jason  Philip  Schimmelweis,  on 
the  contrary,  was  plainly  worried.  He  looked  like  a  man  who 
was  on  the  down  grade.  There  was  a  great  grease  spot  on  his  coat. 
This  spot  told  the  story  of  domestic  troubles;  it  revealed  the  fact 
that  Jason  Philip  had  a  wife  who  had  been  ill  in  bed  for  months, 
and  no  physician  in  the  city  could  diagnose  her  case;  none  knew 
what  she  was  suffering  from.  Jason  Philip  was  angry  at  his  wife, 
at  her  illness,  at  the  whole  medical  profession,  and  at  the  growing 
confusion  and  disorder  in  his  affairs. 

As  they  crossed  /Egvdius  Place  he  cast  a  glance  of  unbounded 


TRES  FACIUNT  COLLEGIUM  237 

hatred  at  the  house  in  which  Daniel  and  Gertrude  lived.  But 
he  did  not  say  anything;  he  merely  pinched  his  lips  and  hung  his 
head.  In  so  doing  he  noticed  the  grease  spot  on  his  coat,  and 
emitted  a  vexed  growl.  "I  will  go  along  with  you,  Herr  Apothe- 
cary, and  get  a  bottle  of  benzine,"  he  said,  turning  to  his  com- 
panion. In  his  voice  there  was  a  noticeable  trace  of  that  reluctant 
and  unwilling  humility  which  the  poor  display  in  the  presence  of 
the  rich. 

"Good,  good,"  he  said,  "come  right  along."  He  blew  the  air 
before  him;  for  he  was  warm.  "Greetings,  greetings,"  he  ex- 
claimed, and  waved  his  hand,  "what  are  you  doing  here?" 

It  was  Herr  Carovius  to  whom  he  spoke.  Herr  Carovius  was 
just  then  standing  by  the  fountain  of  the  Goose  Man,  rapt  in 
the  sort  of  reflection  that  was  peculiar  to  him. 

"At  your  service,  gentlemen,"  he  said. 

"I  see  there  are  natives  who  study  our  native  art,"  remarked 
the  apothecary  with  an  ironical  smile,  and  stopped.  Jason  Philip 
likewise  stopped,  and  looked  in  a  dazed,  distraught  way  at  the 
bronze  man  with  the  two  geese.  Some  boys  were  playing  ball 
close  by  the  fountain.  When  they  saw  the  three  men  looking  at  it, 
they  quit  playing,  came  up,  and  looked  at  the  fountain  and  the 
men  and  grinned  as  if  there  were  something  new  to  be  seen. 

"We  have  no  idea  what  riches  we  possess,"  said  Herr  Carovius. 

"Quite  right,  quite  right,"  nodded  the  apothecary. 

"I  have  just  been  trying  to  think  what  meaning  this  group  may 
have,"  continued  Herr  Carovius,  "there  is  undeniably  a  musical 
motif  in  it." 

"A  musical  motif?"  murmured  Jason  Philip,  to  whom  the  very 
term  music  conveyed  the  idea  of  something  unpleasant. 

"Yes,  but  you  have  got  to  understand  it,"  said  Herr  Carovius 
rather  jauntily.  With  that  he  seized  the  ear  of  a  small  boy  who 
had  ventured  right  up  to  his  trousers'  legs;  the  boy  screamed. 

After  casting  an  angry  look  at  the  monument,  Jason  Philip  broke 
out  in  sudden  and  hearty  laughter.  "Now  I  understand,"  he 
stammered  as  he  coughed,  "you  are  a  fox,  a  sly  old  dodger." 

"What  do  you  mean,  gentlemen?"  asked  the  apothecary,  who  had 
become  somewhat  anxious,  for  he  feared  that  this  outburst  of 
hilarity  was  directed  at  him. 

"Why,  don't  you  see?  Don't  you  understand?"  panted  Jason 
Philip  with  a  scarlet  red  face,  "the  two  geese — ?  The  musical 
motif  and  the  two  geese — ?  Isn't  it  clear  yet?" 

It  was  clear  to  Herr  Carovius.      He   stuck  the   index   finger  of 


238  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

his  right  hand  in  the  air,  and  broke  out  in  a  neighing  sort  of 
laughter.  Then  he  took  the  apothecary  by  the  arm,  and  in  the 
pauses  between  salvos  of  laughter  he  bleated:  "Magnificent! — 
Under  each  arm  a  goose! — Priceless!  Say,  Herr  Schimmelweis, 
that  was  good.  We  will  allow  you  one  on  that." 

The  connection  was  now  clear  to  the  apothecary.  He  slapped 
himself  on  his  hips  and  cried:  "As  sure  as  there  is  a  devil,  that's 
the  best  joke  I  ever  heard  in  my  life." 

Jason  Philip  Schimmelweis  again  got  control  of  himself.  He 
pressed  his  hands  to  his  stomach  and  said  breathlessly:  "Who  would 
have  thought  that  the  Goose  Man  moves  about  among  us  in  bodily 
form?" 

"Yes,  who  would  have  thought  it?"  said  Herr  Carovius  as  if 
conceding  a  point.  "It  is  a  capital  shot,  a  real  discovery.  We 
come  to  the  simple  conclusion:  Goose  Man!  And  we  are  capable 
of  drawing  a  conclusion,  for  there  are  three  of  us.  According  to 
an  old  proverb,  Tres  faciunt  collegium" 

"And  they,"  stuttered  Jason  Philip,  pointing  to  the  group,  as 
tears  of  laughter  trickled  down  over  his  pudgy  cheeks,  "they  are 
three,  too.  See,  there  are  three  of  them!" 

"Right,"  screamed  Herr  Carovius,  "there  are  three  of  them,  too. 
It  is  all  clear." 

"Have  a  chew,  gentlemen?"  said  the  apothecary,  taking  his 
tobacco  pouch  from  his  pocket. 

"No,"  replied  Jason  Philip,  "that  joke  deserves  a  cigar."  The 
remark  was  made  between  gulps  of  laughter. 

"I  suggest  that  we  christen  the  story  with  a  flask  of  Salvator," 
said  Herr  Carovius. 

The  other  two  agreed  to  the  proposal.  The  collegium  marched 
across  the  square,  stopped  every  now  and  then,  broke  out  in  fits  of 
insuppressible  laughter,  and  then  continued  on  their  way  to  the  inn 
with  parched  throats. 

It  may  have  been  only  an  evening  shadow,  or  it  may  have  been  a 
rare  inspiration  that  created  the  impression.  But  the  Goose  Man, 
standing  there  in  all  his  pride  behind  the  iron  railing,  seemed  to 
follow  them  with  his  eyes,  in  which  there  were  traces  of  sorrow 
and  astonishment.  The  boys  playing  ball  had  soon  forgotten  the 
delectable  episode. 


PHILIPPINA  STARTS  A  FIRE 


DANIEL  and  Eleanore  had  reached  a  stage  of  mutual  silence; 
it  was  not  the  first  time,  however,  and  it  was  as  disagreeable  now 
as  it  had  been  then.  They  would  meet  on  the  steps,  and  pass  each 
other  with  a  mere  nod.  If  Eleanore  came  in  to  see  Gertrude, 
Daniel  withdrew. 

Once  Eleanore  called  when  Gertrude  was  not  at  home.  Daniel 
was  stubborn;  nor  could  Eleanore  manage  to  make  a  single  rational 
remark.  He  did  not  like  her  looks;  he  suspected  her  paleness 
and  outward,  enforced  cheerfulness.  "It  is  an  undignified  state 
of  affairs,  Eleanore,"  he  exclaimed,  "we  must  make  an  end  of  it." 

Make  an  end  of  it?  Yes — but  how?  This  was  the  thought  that 
came  at  once  to  Eleanore's  mind.  Every  day  the  chain  that  bound 
her  to  him  became  stronger. 

Daniel  was  also  tortured  by  the  sight  of  Gertrude.  He  felt 
that  she  was  watching  him  and  that  she  was  worried  about  him. 
More  than  that,  the  event  was  approaching  that  surrounded  her 
with  an  atmosphere  of  suffering  and  made  forbearance  obligatory. 
Her  features,  though  haggard  and  distorted,  bore  nevertheless  an 
expression  of  mysterious  transfiguration. 

After  Gertrude  had  noticed  for  some  time  that  Daniel  was  being 
estranged  from  his  work  and  that  he  had  lost  interest  in  every- 
thing, she  decided  to  have  a  talk  with  Eleanore.  She  did  it  with- 
out preparation  or  tenderness. 

"Can't  you  see  that  you  are  ruining  him?"  she  cried. 

"You  want  me  to  be  ruined,  do  you?"  asked  Eleanore,  in  sur- 
prised dismay.  She  had  appreciated  at  once  and  without  difficulty 
the  complete  range  of  Gertrude's  renunciation. 

"What  difference  does  it  make  about  you?"  replied  Gertrude 
harshly;  "what  are  you  getting  excited  about?" 

This  question  made  Eleanore's  ideas  of  order  and  duty  quake 
and  totter.  She  looked  at  her  sister  with  incredulous  eyes  and 
in  perfect  silence.  It  was  not  the  happy,  gentle  Gertrude  that  had 
spoken,  but  the  Gertrude  of  months  ago,  the  lonely,  loveless 
Gertrude. 

What  difference  does  it  make  about  you?  Why  arc  you  getting 

239 


240  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

excited?  That  was  equivalent  to  saying:  Make  short  work  of  your 
life,  and  don't  draw  out  the  episode  in  his  life  any  longer  than 
you  have  to. 

Eleanore  took  courage  to  carry  out  the  plan  she  had  had  in  mind 
for  a  long  while  and  in  which  she  placed  her  last  hope. 

One  evening  she  went  to  Daniel  and  said:  "I  should  like  to  go 
with  you  to  Eschenbach,  Daniel,  and  visit  your  mother." 

"Why  do  you  wish  to  do  that?"  he  asked  in  amazement.  He 
and  his  mother  did  not  write  to  each  other:  that  was  due  first  of 
all  to  their  natures,  and  secondly  to  the  condition  in  which  each 
was  now  living.  But  he  knew  that  Eleanore  received  an  occasional 
letter  from  Eschenbach  which  she  answered  without  consulting  him. 
This  had  never  seemed  strange  to  him  until  now. 

A  few  days  later  she  repeated  her  wish;  Daniel  granted  it. 
They  decided  upon  the  following  Sunday  for  the  excursion. 


A  warm,  languid  October  sun  shone  over  the  land;  the  forests 
presented  a  gorgeous  array  of  autumnal  foliage;  the  fields  lay 
stretched  in  barren  rows;  along  the  hills  of  Franconia  floated  clouds 
that  looked  like  down  driven  by  the  wind. 

They  had  taken  the  train  as  far  as  Triesdorf ;  from  there  they 
went  on  to  Merckendorf  by  stage  coach.  The  rest  of  the  distance 
they  walked.  Daniel  pointed  to  a  flock  of  geese  that  were  trotting 
around  on  the  shore  of  an  abandoned  pond,  and  said:  "That  is 
our  national  bird;  his  cackle  is  our  music.  But  it  doesn't  sound 
so  bad." 

A  peasant  woman  passed  by,  and  made  the  sign  of  the  cross 
before  the  picture  of  a  saint:  "It  is  strange  that  everything  has 
suddenly  become  Catholic,"  said  Eleanore. 

Daniel  nodded,  and  replied  that  when  his  father  moved  to 
Eschenbach  a  few  other  Protestant  families  were  living  there,  all 
of  whom  joined  in  Protestant  worship.  Later,  he  said,  most  of 
them  emigrated,  leaving  his  mother  as  the  only  Protestant,  so  far 
as  he  knew,  in  the  neighbourhood.  But,  Daniel  remarked  in  the 
course  of  conversation,  his  mother  had  never  had  any  unpleasant 
experience  on  this  account,  and  he  himself  had  frequently  gone  to 
church,  primarily  of  course  to  helta"  the  organ,  though  no  one  had 
ever  taken  offence  at  this.  "There  is  a  totally  different  type  of 
people  here,"  he  added,  "people  who  lay  greater  stress  on  externals 
than  we  do,  and  yet  are  more  secretive." 


PHILIPPINA  STARTS  A  FIRE  241 

Elcanore  looked  at  the  church  tower  whose  Spanish-green  roof 
rose  from  the  valley.  After  a  long  silence  she  said:  "I  wonder 
whether  it  will  be  a  boy  or  a  girl,  Gertrude's  baby?  Oh,  a  girl, 
of  course.  Some  day  it  will  be  in  the  world,  and  will  look  at  me 
with  eyes,  with  real  eyes.  How  strange  that  a  child  of  yours 
should  look  at  me!" 

"What  is  there  strange  about  that?  Many  children  are  born, 
many  look  at  some  one." 

"What  are  you  going  to  call  it? "  asked  Eleanore. 

"If  it  is  blond  and  has  blue  eyes  like  yours,  I  am  going  to 
call  it  Eva." 

"Eva!"  cried  Eleanore,  "no,  that  won't  do."  She  herself  had 
chosen  the  name  of  Eva  for  the  child  of  the  maid  at  the  Riidigers'. 
That  he  should  now  want  to  call  Gertrude's  child  by  the  same 
name  seemed  so  strange  to  her. 

"Why  not  Eva?"  he  asked.  "There  is  something  back  of  this 
objection  on  your  part.  Women  always  have  something  up  their 
sleeve.  Out  with  it!  Why  do  you  object  to  Eva?" 

Eleanore  smiled,  and  shook  her  head.  She  would  have  liked 
to  make  a  clean  confession  to  him,  but  she  was  not  certain  how  he 
would  take  it:  she  was  afraid  he  would  turn  back,  enraged  at  her 
cunning.  Once  the  child  had  been  born  and  lay  there  before 
him,  it  would  captivate  him,  and  she  knew  it. 

They  had  stopped  and  were  looking  out  over  the  sunlit  plains. 
"How  alone  we  are!"  said  Daniel. 

"Everything  is  easier  here,"  said  Eleanore  thoughtfully.  "If 
one  could  only  forget  where  one  comes  from,  it  would  be  easy  to 
be  happy." 


"I  have  been  away  for  seven  years,"  said  Daniel  as  they  passed 
through  the  village  gate.  Everything  seemed  so  ridiculously  small 
— the  Town  Hall,  the  Church,  the  Market  Place,  and  the  Eschen- 
bach  Fountain.  He  had  also  pictured  the  houses  and  streets  to 
himself  as  being  cleaner  and  better  kept.  As  he  passed  over  the 
three  steps  at  the  front  gate,  each  one  of  which  was  bulging  out 
like  a  huge  oyster  shell,  and  entered  the  shop  with  its  smell  of 
spices,  the  past  dwindled  to  nothing.  Marian  was  so  happy  she 
could  not  speak.  She  reached  one  of  her  hands  to  Daniel,  the 
other  to  Eleanore.  Her  first  question  was  about  Gertrude. 

In    the    room    sat    a    four-year-old    child    with    blond    hair    and 


242  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

marvellous  blue  eyes.  Its  little  face  was  of  the  most  delicate  beauty, 
its  body  was  delicately  formed. 

"Who  is  the  child?      To  whom  does  it  belong?"  asked  Daniel. 

"It  is  your  own  child,  Daniel,"  said  his  mother. 

"My  own  child!  Yes,  for  heaven's  sakes — !"  He  blushed, 
turned  pale,  looked  first  at  his  mother,  and  then  at  Eleanore. 

"It  is  your  own  flesh  and  blood.  Don't  you  ever  think  of 
Meta  any  more? " 

"Of  Meta.  .  .  .  Oh,  I  see.  And  you,  you  adopted  the  child? 
And  you,  Eleanore,  knew  all  about  this?  And  you,  Mother,  took 
the  child?"  He  sat  down  at  the  table,  and  covered  his  face  with 
his  hands.  "That  was  what  Eleanore  had  in  mind?"  he  murmured 
timidly  to  himself.  "And  I  presume  that  to  make  the  story  com- 
plete the  child's  name  is  Eva  .  .  .?" 

"Yes,  Eva,"  whispered  Eleanore,  touched  by  trie  situation.  "Go 
to  your  father,  Eva,  and  shake  hands  with  him." 

The  child  did  as  it  had  been  told.  Then  Marian  related  to 
her  son  how  Eleanore  had  brought  the  child  to  Eschenbach, 
and  how  Meta  had  married  and  gone  to  America  with  her  hus- 
band. 

Every  look,  every  movement  on  the  part  of  Marian  showed 
how  great  her  love  for  the  child  was:  she  guarded  it  as  the  apple 
of  her  eye. 

The  circle  of  wonderful  events  closed  in  around  Daniel's  heart. 
Where  responsibility  lay  and  where  guilt,  where  will  power  ended 
and  fate  began,  Daniel  could  not  say.  To  express  gratitude  would 
be  vulgar;  to  conceal  his  emotions  was  difficult.  He  was  ashamed 
of  himself  in  the  presence  of  both  of  the  women.  But  when  he 
looked  at  the  living  creature,  his  shame  lost  all  meaning.  And 
how  exalted  Eleanore  appeared  in  his  eyes  just  then!  She  seemed 
to  him  equally  amiable  and  worthy  of  respect,  whether  he  regarded 
her  as  an  active  or  as  a  sentient,  feeling  woman.  He  almost 
shuddered  at  the  thought  that  she  was  so  near  him;  that  what  she 
had  done  had  been  done  for  him  filled  him  with  humility. 

The  strangest  of  all,  however,  was  little  Eva  herself.  He 
could  not  see  enough  of  her;  he  was  amazed  at  the  trick  nature 
had  played:  a  human  being  of  the  noblest  mien  and  form  had 
been  born  of  a  gawky,  uncouth  servant  girl.  There  was  something 
divinely  graceful  and  airy  about  the  child.  She  had  well-formed 
hands,  delicate  wrists,  shapely  ankles,  and  a  clear,  transparent 
forehead,  on  which  a  network  of  bluish  veins  spread  out  in  various 
directions.  Her  laughter  was  the  purest  of  music;  and  in  her 


PHILIPPINA  STARTS  A  FIRE  243 

walk  and  gestures  in  general  there  was  a  rhythm  which  promised 
much  for  her  future  poise  and  winsomeness. 

Daniel  took  Eleanore  through  the  village  and  out  to  the  old 
town  gate.  It  was  the  time  of  the  annual  fair;  Eschenbach  was 
crowded.  They  returned  on  this  account  to  the  more  quiet  streets, 
and  finally  entered  the  church.  The  sexton  came  up  and  admitted 
Daniel  to  the  choir.  Daniel  sat  down  at  the  organ;  the  sexton 
pumped  the  bellows;  Eleanore  took  a  seat  on  one  of  the  little 
benches  near  the  side  wall. 

Daniel's  eyes  became  fixed;  his  fingers  touched  the  keys  with 
supernatural  power;  he  began  to  improvise.  There  were  two 
motifs  following  each  other  in  close  succession;  both  were  in  fifths; 
they  were  united  into  one;  they  ran  from  the  low  to  the  high 
registers,  from  Hell  through  the  World  to  Heaven.  A  hymn 
crowned  the  improvised  composition. 

He  stood  with  Eleanore  for  a  long  whfle  in  the  stillness.  The 
songs  echoed  from  the  lofty  arches.  It  seemed  to  both  of  them 
that  the  blood  of  the  one  was  flowing  into  the  body  of  the  other. 
Incidents  of  the  past  faded  from  their  memory;  they  seemed  to 
have  completed  a  long  journey;  there  was  no  voice  to  remind  them 
of  their  return;  they  were  completely  liberated  from  duties  and 
made  immune  from  care. 


IV 

Eleanore  was  to  sleep  with  Marian  and  Eva;  Daniel  was  to 
have  his  old  room.  He  showed  it  to  Eleanore;  they  stepped  to 
the  window  and  looked  out.  They  saw  Eva  down  in  the  yard 
dancing  back  and  forth  barefooted  on  a  wooden  balustrade.  She 
kept  her  equilibrium  by  holding  out  her  arms.  The  grace  of 
her  movements  was  so  fairy-like  that  Daniel  and  Eleanore  smiled 
at  each  other  in  astonishment. 

After  dinner  Daniel  went  out  in  front  of  the  house;  Marian 
and  Eleanore  sat  for  a  while  at  the  window;  the  light  of  the  lamp 
shone  behind  them.  Later  they  came  out  into  the  street  and 
joined  Daniel.  Marian,  however,  was  uneasy  on  account  of  the 
child.  She  said  that  Eva  had  been  restless  all  day  and  might  cry 
for  her.  "Stay  out  just  as  long  as  you  like;  I  will  leave  the  door 
open,"  she  said,  and  went  back. 

Daniel  and  Eleanore  returned  to  the  fair.  It  was  still  early  in 
the  evening,  but  the  crowd  had  disappeared.  They  sauntered 
around  among  the  booths,  and  stopped  to  listen  to  the  harangue 


244  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

of  a  mountebank  or  to  watch  peasant  boys  shooting  at  figures  of 
various  kinds  and  a  glass  ball  that  danced  on  a  jet  of  water.  There 
was  a  sea  of  red  and  green  lanterns;  sky-rockets  were  hissing  into 
the  air  from  the  rampart;  musicians  were  playing  in  the  cafes, 
while  hilarious  tipplers  sang  or  hooted  as  the  spirit  moved  them. 

They  came  to  a  grass  plot,  the  sole  illumination  of  which  was 
the  light  from  a  c'rcus  wagon.  On  the  steps  of  the  wagon  sat  a 
man  in  tricot  holding  the  head  of  a  black  poodle  between  his 
knees. 

"Those  were  the  last  inhabitants  of  the  earth,"  said  Daniel, 
after  they  had  crossed  the  square.  The  noise  died  away,  the 
gaudy  lights  disappeared. 

"How  far  are  you  going?"  asked  Eleanore,  without  the  remotest 
trace  of  fear  in  her  voice. 

"I  am  going  on  until  I  am  with  you,"  was  the  quick  reply. 

The  indistinct  outline  of  a  bridge  became  visible;  under  it  the 
water  flowed  noiselessly.  The  path  had  a  yellowish  shimmer; 
there  were  no  stars  in  the  heavens.  Suddenly  the  path  seemed  to 
come  to  an  end;  at  the  end  of  it  were  trees  there  that  seemed  to 
be  moving  closer  and  closer  together;  it  became  darker  and  darker; 
they  stopped. 

"We  have  told  each  other  our  whole  story,"  said  Daniel.  "In 
the  way  of  words  we  owe  each  other  nothing.  We  have  had 
enough  of  talk;  there  has  been  no  lack  of  sorrow  and  enough  of 
error.  We  can  no  longer  act  differently,  and  therefore  we  dare 
not  act  differently  any  longer." 

"Be  still,"  whispered  Eleanore,  "I  don't  like  your  wrangling; 
what  you  say  is  so  unpeaceful  and  fiendish.  Yesterday  I  dreamed 
that  you  were  lying  on  your  knees  and  had  your  folded  hands 
uplifted.  Then  I  loved  you — very  much." 

"Do  you  need  dreams  in  order  to  love  me,  girl?  I  don't;  I 
need  you  just  as  you  are.  I  will  soon  be  thirty  years  old,  Eleanore. 
A  man  never  really  wakes  up  until  he  is  thirty;  it  is  then  that  he 
conquers  the  world.  You  know  what  rests  within  me;  you  suspect 
it.  You  know  too  how  I  need  you;  you  feel  it.  You  are  my 
soul;  you  are  created  out  of  my  music;  without  you  I  am  an 
empty  hull,  a  patchwork,  a  violin  without  strings." 

"Oh,  Daniel,  I  believe  you,  and  yet  it  is  not  all  true,"  replied 
Eleanore.  He  thought  he  could  see  in  the  darkness  her  mockingly 
ironical  smile:  "Somewhere,  I  am  almost  tempted  to  say  in  God, 
it  is  not  true.  If  we  were  better,  if  we  were  beings  in  the  image 
of  God  and  acting  in  God's  ways,  we  would  have  to  desist  from 


PHILIPPINA  STARTS  A  FIRE  245 

our  own  ways.  Then  it  would  be  wonderful  to  live:  it  would  be 
like  living  above  the  clouds,  happy,  at  peace,  pure." 

"Does  that  come  from  your  heart,  Eleanore?" 

"My  dear,  dear  man!  My  heart,  like  yours,  has  been  beclouded 
and  bewitched.  I  cannot  give  you  up.  I  have  settled  my  accounts. 
In  my  soul  I  am  entirely  conscious  of  my  guilt.  I  know  what  I 
am  doing  and  assume  full  responsibility  for  my  action.  There  is 
no  use  to  struggle  any  longer;  the  water  is  already  swirling  over 
our  heads.  I  simply  want  to  say  that  you  should  not  delude  your- 
self into  believing  that  we  have  risen  up  above  other  people  by 
what  we  have  done,  that  we  have  deserved  the  gratitude  of  fate. 
No,  Daniel,  what  we  are  doing  is  precisely  what  all  those  do  who 
fall.  Let  me  stay  with  you,  dearest;  kiss  me,  kiss  me  to  death." 


Philippina  had  promised  Eleanore  to  look  after  Jordan  and 
Gertrude  on  Sunday. 

As  she  was  crossing  Five  Points,  she  went  into  a  shop,  and  asked 
for  three  pfennigs'  worth  of  court  plaster.  While  doing  some 
housework  she  had  scratched  herself  on  a  nail.  The  clerk  gave 
her  the  plaster,  and  asked  her  what  was  the  news. 

"Ah,  you  poor  bloke,  you  want  to  know  the  very  latest,  don't 
you?"  she  snarled,  and  then  grinned  with  blatant  self-complacency. 

"The  later  the  better,"  said  the  fellow  with  a  lustful  smirk. 

Philippina  bent  over  the  counter,  and  whispered:  "They're  taking 
their  wedding  trip  to-day."  She  laughed  in  a  lewd,  imbecile  way. 
The  clerk  stared  at  her  with  wide-opened  eyes  and  mouth.  Two 
hours  later  the  news  was  in  the  mouth  of  every  hussy  in  that 
section  of  the  city. 

Gertrude  was  in  bed.  The  day  woman  who  did  the  cooking 
gave  Philippina  a  plate  with  Jordan's  dinner  on  it:  Meat,  vegetables, 
and  a  few  sour  plums.  Philippina  ate  two  of  the  plums  on  the 
way  up  to  his  room,  and  licked  her  fingers. 

The  whole  forenoon  she  spent  rummaging  around  in  Eleanore's 
room ;  she  looked  through  the  cabinets,  the  presses,  and  the  pockets 
of  Eleanore's  dresses.  As  it  began  to  grow  dark,  Jordan  suddenly 
entered,  in  hat  and  great  coat,  and  looked  on  in  speechless  and 
enraged  amazement  at  the  girl's  inexplicable  curiosity. 

Philippina  took  the  broom  from  the  corner,  and  began  to  sweep 
with  all  her  might.  While  sweeping  she  sang,  out  of  tune,  im- 
pudently, and  savagely: 


246  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

"No  fire,  no  coal,  so  warmly  glows 
As  secret  love  that  no  one  knows." 

Jordan  went  away  without  saying  anything.  He  had  forgotten 
to  lock  his  room..  Hardly  had  Philippina  noticed  that  he  had  left 
the  key  in  the  door,  when  she  opened  it  and  went  in. 

She  spied  around  with  cowardly,  superstitious  eyes.  She  was 
afraid  of  the  old  inspector,  as  she  would  have  been  afraid  of  an 
invincible  magician.  For  such  cases  she  had  a  number  of  formulas 
at  her  tongue's  end.  She  murmured:  "Put  earth  in,  close  the  lid, 
hold  your  thumbs,  spit  on  your  shoe."  She  spat  on  her  shoe. 

Ske  then  began  to  examine  the  cabinet,  for  she  believed  that  it 
contained  all  of  Jordan's  secrets.  But  she  could  not  open  the 
lock,  try  as  she  might.  She  then  went  at  the  writing  desk;  she 
was  angry.  There  she  found,  in  plain  wooden  frames,  the  pictures 
of  Gertrude  and  Eleanore.  She  ran  out,  got  a  large  needle,  came 
back,  and  stuck  it  in  the  picture  of  Eleanore  right  between  the  eyes. 
Then  she  took  Gertrude's  picture,  and  after  she  had  held  it  for  a 
while,  looking  at  it  with  her  gloomy  eyes,  she  noticed  that  it  was 
spotted  with  blood.  The  plaster  had  come  off  her  finger,  and 
the  finger  had  started  to  bleed. 

"Come  now,  Philippina,"  she  said  to  herself,  "go  and  see  how 
Gertrude  is  making  out."  Entering  Gertrude's  room,  she  found 
her  asleep.  Creeping  up  to  her  bed  on  her  tiptoes,  she  took  a 
chair,  straddled  it,  leaned  her  chin  on  the  back,  and  stared  fixedly 
at  the  face  of  the  young  woman,  now  just  barely  visible  in  the 
darkness  of  the  room. 

Gertrude  dreamed  that  a  black  bird  was  hovering  over  her  and 
picking  at  her  breast  with  its  pointed  beak.  She  screamed  and 
woke  up. 

Shortly  after  this  Gertrude  had  to  send  for  the  midwife. 

During  the  night,  Gertrude  gave  birth  to  a  girl;  she  had  suffered 
terrible  pains.  Philippina  had  seen  and  heard  it  all.  She  had 
run  back  and  forth,  from  the  kitchen  to  the  bedroom  and  from  the 
bedroom  to  the  kitchen,  for  hours;  she  was  like  an  insane  person; 
she  kept  mumbling  something  to  herself.  What  she  mumbled 
no  one  knew. 

Gertrude  had  called  in  vain  for  Daniel;  in  vain  had  she  waited 
for  him  the  whole  day. 

"Where  in  the  world  can  Daniel  be?"  cried  Philippina,  "where 
can  Daniel  be  with  his  damned  Eleanore?"  She  sat  in  the  corner 
with  her  hands  folded,  her  hair  tangled  and  knotted,  her  face 


PHILIPPINA  STARTS  A  FIRE  247 

distorted  with   the  grimaces  of  madness.     The  midwife  was  still 
busy  with  Gertrude;  the  new-born  child  was  crying  pitifully. 


Daniel  held  the  child  in  his  arms,  and  looked  at  it  carefully 
but  without  love.  "You  little  worm,  what  do  you  want  in  this 
world?"  he  said  to  his  daughter.  He  still  had  his  hat  on;  so  had 
Eleanore.  Both  of  them  were  dressed  just  as  they  came  from 
the  station;  they  were  embarrassed  and  excited  at  what  had  hap- 
pened. Eleanore  was  exceedingly  pale;  her  great  eyes  looked 
dreamy;  her  body  seemed  of  almost  boyish  slenderness.  At  times 
she  smiled;  then  the  smile  died  away,  as  if  she  did  not  have  the 
courage  to  appear  so  cheerful. 

Inspector  Jordan  was  also  in  the  room,  acting  as  he  had  always 
acted  since  his  bankruptcy — like  a  guest  who  feels  that  he  is  a 
burden  to  the  family.  He  said  very  humbly:  "I  have  suggested 
to  Gertrude  that  she  call  the  child  Agnes  after  my  deceased  wife." 

"Very  well,  let's  call  her  Agnes,"  said  Daniel. 

Gertrude  asked  that  the  child  be  brought  to  her  so  that  she 
could  nurse  it.  Eleanore  carried  it  over  and  laid  it  at  her  breast. 
As  the  hands  of  the  sisters  touched,  Gertrude  looked  up  quickly: 
there  was  an  indescribable  expression  of  thoughtfulness,  knowing- 
ness,  and  kindliness  on  her  face.  Eleanore  fell  on  her  knees, 
threw  her  arms  around  Gertrude's  neck,  and  kissed  her  passionately. 
Gertrude  reached  out  her  left  hand  to  Daniel;  he  gave  her  his 
right  hand  with  some  hesitancy.  Jordan  was  radiant  with  joy:  "It 
is  so  good,  children,  to  see  that  you  all  love  each  other,  so  good," 
he  said  with  visible  emotion. 

"Daniel,  you  must  move  up  into  Father's  quarters  at  once," 
said  Gertrude.  "Your  piano,  bed,  and  all  your  things  must  be 
taken  up,  and  Eleanore  will  move  into  your  room.  I  have  already 
spoken  to  Father  about  it,  and  he  feels  that  it  will  be  a  good 
arrangement.  He  will  be  very  quiet  so  as  not  disturb  you.  The 
crying  of  the  baby  would  make  it  impossible  for  you  to  work." 

"It  is  a  very  practical  solution  of  the  problem,"  said  Jordan, 
speaking  for  Daniel,  and  looked  down  at  his  frayed  coat-sleeves, 
which  he  tried  to  conceal  by  hiding  them  behind  his  back.  "I 
am  also  glad  that  Eleanore  will  be  with  you.  A  man,  you  know, 
has  a  habit  of  going  to  bed  long  before  a  woman  quits  her  daily 
work.  Is  that  not  true,  my  .son-in-law?"  With  that  he  clapped 
Daniel  on  the  shoulder. 


248  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

"During  Gertrude's  confinement  I  will  sleep  here  in  her  room," 
said  Eleanore,  avoiding  Daniel's  eyes  as  she  said  so.  "She  cannot 
stay  alone,  and  it  costs  too  much  to  keep  a  nurse." 

"Exactly,"  said  Jordan,  and  went  to  the  door.  But  he  turned 
around:  "I  should  like  to  know,"  he  asked  in  a  tone  of  great 
grief,  "who  has  been  at  Gertrude's  and  Eleanore's  pictures.  The 
one  is  covered  with  spots  of  blood,  and  the  other  has  a  hole 
punched  in  it.  Isn't  that  very  strange?  I  can't  understand  it: 
I  can't  imagine  who  could  have  done  me  this  injury."  He  shook 
his  head  and  went  out. 

"Do  you  realise  that  to-morrow  is  the  first  of  November? " 
asked  Gertrude.  "Have  you  the  rent  ready?  Did  Father  make 
any  money  last  month?" 

"No,  he  didn't,"  replied  Eleanore,  "but  I  have  almost  enough 
to  pay  the  landlord." 

It  was  no  longer  possible  to  depend  upou  Jordan.  He  was 
supported  by  his  children,  and  seemed  to  find  the  arrangement 
neither  strange  nor  humiliating.  At  times  he  would  allude  in  a 
mysterious  way  to  a  big  enterprise  that  was  going  to  claim  the 
whole  of  his  attention  and  bring  him  a  great  deal  of  money  and 
honour.  But  if  you  asked  him  about  it,  he  would  wrinkle  hia 
brow  and  put  his  finger  to  his  lips. 

"I  owe  the  man  more  than  the  rent,"  said  Daniel.  He  kissed 
Gertrude  on  the  forehead,  and  went  out. 

"Put  the  child  in  the  cradle,  and  come  over  here,"  said  Gertrude 
to  Eleanore,  as  soon  as  Daniel  had  closed  the  door  behind  him. 
Eleanore  did  as  she  had  been  told.  The  baby  was  asleep.  She 
took  it  up,  looked  at  its  wrinkled  face,  and  carried  it  to  the  cradle. 
Then  she  went  over  to  Gertrude's  bed. 

Gertrude  seized  her  by  her  hands,  and  drew  her  down  to  her 
with  more  strength  than  one  would  have  imagined  her  to  have 
just  then.  The  eyes  of  the  two  women  were  drawn  close  to- 
gether. "You  must  make  him  happy,  Eleanore,"  she  said  in  a 
hoarse  voice,  and  with  a  sickly  glimmer  in  her  eyes.  "If  you  do 
not,  it  would  be  better  if  one  of  us  were  dead." 

Despite  her  terror,  Eleanore  loosened  Gertrude's  hold  on  her 
with  great  gentleness.  "It  is  hard  to  discuss  that  subject,  Ger- 
trude; it  is  hard  to  live  and  hard  to  think  about  it  all."  Eleanore 
breathed  these  words  into  Gertrude's  ears. 

"You  must  make  him  happy;  you  must  make  him  happy!  Re- 
peat it  to  yourself  and  keep  it  in  your  mind  every  day,  every  hour, 


PHILIPPINA  STARTS  A  FIRE  249 

every  minute.  You  must,  you  must,  you  must."  Gertrude  was 
almost  beside  herself. 

"I  will  learn  how  to  do  it,"  replied  Eleanore  slowly  and  seri- 
ously. "I  am  ...  I  hardly  know  what  I  am  or  how  I  feel. 
But  be  patient  with  me,  Gertrude,  I  will  learn  how  to  make  him 
happy."  She  looked  into  Gertrude's  face  with  anxious  curiosity. 
Gertrude  however  pressed  her  hands  against  Eleanore's  cheeks, 
drew  her  down  to  her  again,  and  kissed  her  with  unusual  fervour. 
"I  too  must  learn  how,"  whispered  Gertrude,  "I  must  learn  the 
whole  of  life  from  the  very  beginning." 

Some  one  knocked  at  the  door.  The  midwife  came  in  to  look 
after  her  patient. 

VII 

At  that  time  the  superstition  still  prevailed  that  the  window  in 
the  room  of  a  woman  in  confinement  must  never  be  opened.  The 
air  in  the  room  was  consequently  heavy  and  ill-smelling.  Eleanore 
could  hardly  stand  it  during  the  day;  during  the  night  she  could 
not  sleep.  Moreover  natural  daylight  could  not  enter  the  room, 
and,  as  if  it  were  not  already  gloomy  enough,  the  window  had 
been  hung  with  green  curtains  which  were  kept  half  drawn. 

The  most  unpleasant  feature  of  all,  however,  was  the  intermina- 
ble round  of  visits  from  the  women:  custom  had  decreed  that  they 
should  not  be  turned  away.  The  wife  of  the  director  of  the 
theatre  came  in;  Martha  Riibsam  came  in,  and  so  did  the  wife  of 
Councillor  Kirschner,  and  the  wives  of  the  butcher,  baker,  preacher, 
and  physician.  And  of  course  the  wife  of  the  apothecary  called. 
No  one  of  them  failed  to  pour  out  an  abundance  of  gratuitous 
advice  or  go  into  ecstasies  over  the  beauty  of  the  baby.  Once 
Daniel  came  in  just  as  such  an  assemblage  was  in  the  sick  room. 
He  looked  first  at  one,  then  at  another,  threw  back  his  head,  and 
left  without  saying  a  word. 

Herr  Seelenfromm  and  M.  Riviere  were  likewise  not  fright- 
ened by  the  distance;  they  called.  Eleanore  met  them  in  the  hall, 
and  got  rid  of  them  by  the  usual  method.  And  one  day  even 
Herr  Carovius  came  around  to  inquire  how  mother  and  child  were 
doing.  Philippina  received  him;  and  Philippina  was  having  a  hard 
time  of  it  at  present:  she  was  not  allowed  to  enter  Gertrude's 
room;  Gertrude  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  her;  she  refused 
to  see  her. 


250  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

So  that  she  might  not  get  too  far  behind  with  her  work — for  it 
meant  her  daily  bread — Eleanore  pushed  the  table  up  to  the 
window,  and  despite  the  poor  light,  kept  on  writing.  In  the 
evening  she  would  sit  by  the  lamp  and  write,  although  she  was 
so  tired  that  she  could  hardly  keep  her  eyes  open. 

After  three  days,  Gertrude  had  no  milk  for  the  baby;  it  had  to 
be  fed  with  a  bottle.  It  would  cry  for  hours  without  stopping. 
And  as  soon  as  it  was  quiet,  its  clothes  had  to  be  washed  or  its 
bath  prepared,  or  Gertrude  wanted  something,  or  one  of  the 
pestiferous  visitors  came  in.  Eleanore  had  to  lay  her  work  aside; 
in  the  evening  she  would  fall  across  the  bed  and  sleep  with  painful 
soundness  for  an  hour  or  two.  If  the  baby  did  not  wake  her  by 
its  hungry  howling,  the  bad  air  did.  Her  head  ached.  Yet  she 
concealed  her  weakness,  her  longing,  her  oppression.  Not  even 
Daniel  noticed  that  there  was  anything  wrong  with  her. 

She  had  very  little  opportunity  to  talk  with  him.  And  yet 
there  was  probably  not  another  pair  of  eyes  in  the  whole  world 
that  could  be  so  eloquent  and  communicative  with  admonition, 
promise,  request,  and  cordial  resignation.  One  evening  they  met 
each  other  at  the  kitchen  door:  "Eleanore,  I  am  stifling,"  he  whis- 
pered to  her. 

She  laid  her  hands  on  his  shoulder,  and  looked  at  him  in 
silence. 

"Come  with  me,"  he  urged  with  a  stupid  air..  "Come  with  me! 
Let's  run  off." 

Eleanore  smiled  and  thought  to  herself:  "The  demands  of  his  soul 
are  always  a  few  leagues  in  advance  of  the  humanly  possible." 

The  next  morning  he  stormed  into  the  room.  Eleanore  was 
only  half  dressed.  With  an  expression  of  wrath  flitting  across  her 
face  she  reached  for  a  towel  and  draped  it  about  her  shoulders. 
He  sat  down  on  Gertrude's  bed,  and  let  loose  a  torrent  of  words: 
"I  am  going  to  set  Goethe's  'Wanderers  Sturmlied'  to  music!  I 
am  planning  to  make  it  a  companion  piece  to  the  'Harzreise'  and 
publish  the  two  in  a  cycle.  I  have  not  slept  the  whole  night.  The 
main  motif  is  glorious."  He  began  to  hum  it  over  in  a  falsetto 
voice:  "  'Oh,  mortal  man,  if  genius  does  not  forsake  thee,  neither 
rain  nor  storm  can  breathe  upon  thy  heart!'  How  do  you  like 
that?" 

Gertrude  looked  at  him  inspired. 

"I  should  have  a  good  drink  on  that  idea,"  he  continued;  "I 
have  rarely  felt  such  a  longing  for  a  flask  of  old  wine.  It's  a 
bloody  shame  that  I  can't  afford  it.  But  you  wait  till  I  get  a 


PHILIPPINA  STARTS  A  FIRE  251 

little  money,  and  you  will  see  a  boutcillc  of  Tokay  on  my  table 
CTery  day." 

"My  God,  just  listen  how  he  raves!  He's  going  to  have  the 
best  there  is,"  said  Philippina  angrily,  as  she  entered  the  room  in 
her  stocking  feet  and  heard  Daniel's  remarks. 

Daniel  told  her  to  keep  her  mouth  shut  and  leave  the  room  at 
once.  He  paid  no  attention  to  her  reply,  and  cried  out:  "Some- 
thing has  got  to  happen.  If  I  can't  drink,  I  at  least  want  to 
dance.  Dance  with  me,  Eleanore;  don't  be  afraid,  come,  dance 
with  me!"  He  threw  his  arms  around  her,  pressed  her  to  his 
bosom,  sang  a  waltz  melody,  and  drew  the  struggling  and  em- 
barrassed girl  across  the  floor. 

Philippina  broke  out  in  her  slimy,  malicious  laughter,  and  then 
shrieked  at  the  top  of  her  voice  that  Frau  Kirschner  was  outside 
and  wanted  to  see  the  Kapellmeister's  wife.  Gertrude  made  an 
imploring  gesture,  the  full  meaning  of  which  Daniel  easily  grasped. 
The  baby  began  to  cry,  Eleanore  tore  herself  away  from  Daniel's 
embrace,  arranged  her  hair,  and  hastened  over  to  the  cradle. 
Philippina  opened  the  door  to  let  the  Councillor's  wife  in.  Just 
then  a  violent  discussion  was  started  in  the  hall.  One  could  hear 
the  voice  of  Jordan  and  that  of  some  strange  man. 

It  was  the  furniture  dealer  who  had  come  to  collect  the  money 
for  the  cradle.  He  was  boiling  with  the  rage  that  cares  not  how 
it  may  be  expressed:  he  said  he  had  already  been  there  four  times, 
and  each  time  he  was  put  off.  The  truth  is,  Daniel  was  very 
hard  up. 

The  Councillor's  wife  took  Daniel  to  one  side,  and  made  him 
an  offer  of  a  loan  of  two  hundred  marks.  Daniel  was  silent;  he 
bit  his  lips,  and  looked  down  at  the  floor.  She  scolded  him: 
"You  are  always  your  own  worst  enemy.  Now  be  reasonable, 
Nothafft,  I  will  send  the  money  over  at  noon.  If  you  have  any 
left,  you  may  pay  it  back." 

Daniel  went  out,  and  gave  the  blustering  furniture  dealer  hii 
last  ten-mark  piece. 

Frau  Kirschner  had  brought  a  flask  of  Tokay  wine  with  her 
for  Gertrude.  Tokay  was  regarded  at  that  time  as  a  sort  of  elixir 
of  life. 

"You  see,  so  quickly  are  wishes  fulfilled,"  said  Gertrude  to 
Daniel  in  the  evening,  when  he  came  into  her  room.  She  poured 
out  a  glass  for  him. 

"Have  you  any  bills  to  settle?"  he  asked,  looking  partly  at 
Eleanore,  partly  at  Gertrude,  and  striking  his  wallet,  then  bulging 


252  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

with  notes.  "It's  Court  Councillor's  money,"  he  said,  "real 
Court  Councillor's  money.  How  beautiful  it  looks,  lousy  fine,  eh? 
And  upon  that  stuff  the  salvation  of  my  soul  depends!"  He  threw 
the  money  on  Gertrude's  bed,  stuck  out  his  tongue,  and  turned 
away  in  disgust. 

Eleanore  handed  him  the  glass  of  Tokay;  her  eyes  glistened 
with  tears. 

"No,  Eleanore,"  he  said,  "I  have  trifled  it  away.  In  my  arro- 
gance I  imagined  I  could  do  something;  I  thought  I  could  get 
somewhere.  I  sit  down,  brood  over  my  ideas,  and  find  that  they 
are  all  wind-eggs.  I  have  the  feeling  that  I  have  taken  a  false 
oath.  What  good  am  I,  Eleanore,  what  good  am  I,  Gertrude?" 

"Ah,  take  a  drink,  and  perhaps  your  troubles  will  leave  you," 
said  Eleanore,  and  stroked  his  brow  with  her  hand. 

Gertrude  called  out  to  her:  "Quit  that!  Put  that  glass  away!" 
She  spoke  so  harshly  that  Eleanore  sprang  back,  and  Daniel  got  up. 

"Leave  me  alone  for  a  while,"  she  said.  Daniel  and  Eleanore 
left  the  room. 

Eleanore  went  into  the  living  room,  sat  down  at  the  table,  and 
laid  her  head  in  her  hands.  "What  can  we  do  now?"  she  said 
to  Daniel.  The  violin  tone  in  her  voice  had  something  unusually 
touching  about  it. 

Daniel  set  the  candle  he  was  carrying  in  the  bay  window.  He 
bent  down  over  the  table,  and  took  Eleanore  by  her  small  wrists. 
"Accept  the  bitter  for  the  sake  of  the  sweet,"  he  murmured.  "Be- 
lieve in  me,  believe  in  yourself,  believe  in  the  higher  law.  It  is 
not  possible  that  I  merely  imagined  that  there  is  a  winged  creature 
for  me.  I  must  have  something  to  cling  to,  something  inde- 
structible, ah,  even  superhuman." 

"You  must  have  something  superhuman  to  cling  to,"  Eleanore 
repeated  after  him.  She  could  not  help  but  think  that  he  had 
already  made  superhuman  demands  of  the  other  woman,  his  wife, 
hei  sister,  Gertrude.  She  raised  her  finger  as  if  to  warn  him:  it 
»vas  a  gesture  of  infinite  timidity. 

But  Daniel  scarcely  saw  what  she  had  done.  In  his  arrogant 
presumption  and  passion  he  could  have  smashed  the  universe  to 
pieces,  and  then  re-created  it  merely  in  order  to  mould  this  one 
creature  after  his  own  desires.  He  would  have  made  her  of 
boundless  pliability,  and  yet  active  in  her  love  for  him;  he  would 
have  had  her  spurn  venerable  commandments  in  a  spirit  of  self- 
glorification,  and  yet  cherish  unequivocal  confidence  in  him,  the 
Creature  of  need  and  defiance;  and  she  would  be  cheerful  withal. 


PHILIPPINA  STARTS  A  FIRE  253 

"I  am  cold,"  whispered  Eleanore,  peering  into  the  dark  shadows 
of  the  room. 


VIII 

To  know  that  these  eyes  and  their  pure  passion  were  so  close  to 
him;  to  be  able  to  touch  this  cool,  sincere,  mutely-eloquent  mouth 
with  his  lips;  to  be  able  to  hold  these  hands  in  which  passion 
resided  as  it  does  in  the  speechless  unrest  of  a  messenger;  to  be 
able  to  press  this  throbbing  figure  with  all  its  willingness  and  hesi- 
tation to  his  bosom — it  was  almost  too  much  for  Daniel.  It  in- 
volved pain ;  it  aroused  an  impatience,  a  thirst  for  more  and  more. 
His  daily  work  was  interrupted;  his  thoughts,  plans,  and  arrange- 
ments were  torn  from  their  connection. 

He  spoke  to  people  whom  he  knew  as  though  they  were  total 
strangers;  he  amazed  those  whom  he  did  not  know  by  the  loyal 
confidence  he  voluntarily  placed  in  them.  He  forgot  to  put  on  his 
hat  when  he  walked  along  the  street;  the  distraction  he  revealed 
was  the  source  of  constant  merriment  to  passersby  and  onlookers. 
He  would  not  know  when  it  was  noon;  he  would  come  home  at 
three  o'clock,  thinking  it  was  twelve.  Once  he  came  nearly  being 
run  over  by  a  team  of  galloping  horses;  another  time  he  had  his 
umbrella  taken  straight  from  his  hands  without  noticing  it.  This 
took  place  at  the  Ludwig  Station. 

"Oh,  winged  creature,  winged  creature,"  he  would  say  to  him- 
self, and  smile  like  a  somnambulist.  Deep  in  his  soul  a  sea  of 
tones  was  surging.  He  listened  to  them  with  complete  assurance, 
angry  though  he  would  become  at  times  because  of  the  failure  of 
this  or  that.  He  was  so  absorbed  in  himself,  so  enmeshed  in 
his  own  thoughts,  that  he  scarcely  saw  the  sky  above  him;  houses, 
people,  animals,  and  the  things  that  are  after  all  necessary  to  human 
existence  existed  only  in  his  dreams,  if  at  all. 

Winged  creature,  winged  creature! 

IX 

As  soon  as  Gertrude  could  get  up  and  go  about,  Eleanore  ac^ 
cepted  an  invitation  from  Martha  Riibsam  to  visit  her  aunt,  Fran 
Seelenfromm,  in  Altdorf.  The  visit  was  to  last  two  weeks. 
Eleanore  looked  upon  it  as  a  test  that  would  determine  whether 
she  could  do  anything  on  her  own  account  now:  whether  she  could 
get  along  without  Daniel. 


254  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

But  she  saw  that  she  could  no  longer  live  without  him.  In  the 
lonely  house  she  came  to  the  conclusion  that  her  love  was  great 
enough  to  enable  her  to  bear  the  monstrous  burden  fate  had  been 
trying  to  impose  upon  her.  She  saw  that  neither  flight  nor  con- 
cealment nor  anything  else  could  save  her,  could  save  Daniel,  could 
give  back  to  Gertrude  what  she  had  lost,  what  had  been  taken  from 
her. 

There  were  times,  to  be  sure,  when  she  asked  herself  whether 
it  was  all  true  and  real;  whether  it  could  be  possible.  She  walked 
in  darkness  surrounded  by  demons.  Her  being  was  plunged  into 
the  deepest  and  strangest  bewilderment;  confusion  enveloped  her; 
there  was  sorrow  in  the  effort  she  made  to  avert  the  inexorable. 

But  in  one  of  her  sleepless  nights  she  thought  she  was  covering 
Daniel's  mind  with  a  flame  of  fire;  she  thought  she  heard  his 
voice  calling  out  to  her  with  a  power  she  had  never  known  before. 

No  one  she  had  ever  seen  was  so  vivacious,  so  alive  as  he.  Her 
slumbering  fancy  had  awakened  at  the  sound  of  his  voice  and  the 
feel  of  his  warm  breath.  She  felt  that  people  owed  him  a  great 
deal;  and  since  they  did  not  seem  inclined  to  pay  their  debts,  it 
was  her  duty  to  make  restitution  to  Daniel  for  their  neglect. 

She  could  not  survey  the  ways  of  his  art:  the  musician  in  him 
made  neither  a  strange  nor  a  special  appeal  to  her.  She  grasped 
and  felt  only  him  himself;  to  her  he  was  Daniel.  She  grasped 
and  felt  only  the  man  who  was  born  to  do  lofty,  the  loftiest, 
deeds  and  who  passed  by  the  base  and  evil  in  men  in  silence; 
who  knew  that  he  had  been  chosen  but  was  obliged  to  renounce 
the  privilege  of  ruling;  who  was  always  in  full  armour,  ready  to 
defend  a  threatened  sanctuary. 

Of  such  a  man,  of  such  a  knight  and  warrior,  she  had  dreamt 
even  when  a  child.  For  although  she  looked  at  things  and  cir- 
cumstances with  the  eyes  of  truth,  her  soul  had  always  been  full 
of  secret  dreams  and  visions.  Back  of  her  unceasing  and  unfading 
activity  the  genii  of  romanticism  had  been  spinning  their  bright- 
coloured  threads;  it  was  they  that  had  formed  the  glass  case  in 
which  she  had  lived  for  so  long,  impervious  to  the  touch  of  mortal 
hand,  immune  to  the  flames  of  love. 

The  morning  following  that  night  she  explained  to  her  friend 
that  she  was  going  home.  Martha  tried  in  vain  to  get  her  to  stay: 
she  was  almost  ill  with  longing. 

Martha  let  her  go;  she  had  the  very  saddest  of  thoughts  con- 
cerning Eleanore's  future;  for  the  unhappy  incidents  of  that  un- 
happy home  had  reached  Martha's  sensitive  ears.  She  did  not  worry 


PHILIPPINA  STARTS  A  FIRE  255 

because  of  moral  principles;  she  was  not  that  kind  of  a  woman. 
She  worried  over  Eleanore  out  of  genuine  affection:  it  pained  her 
to  know  that  she  could  no  longer  admire  Eleanore. 


In  the  meanwhile  Daniel  had  told  his  wife  that  a  child  of  his 
was  living  with  his  mother  in  Eschenbach,  and  that  he  had  known 
nothing  about  it  until  Eleanore  took  him  over  there.  He  told 
her  the  child's  name  and  how  old  it  was  and  who  its  mother  was, 
and  gave  her  a  detailed  description  of  that  celebrated  New  Year's 
Night  on  which  he  had  embraced  the  maid.  He  told  her  how 
he  had  stood  out  in  front  of  her  house  that  night  and  longed  for 
her  with  all  his  senses,  and  how  he  felt,  when  he  looked  at  little 
Eva,  as  if  Providence  had  only  seemed  to  use  the  body  of  a 
strange  woman,  and  that  Eva  was  in  reality  Gertrude's  own  child. 

To  this  Gertrude  replied:  "I  never  want  to  see  that  child." 

"You  will  be  ashamed  of  having  made  this  remark  once  you  do 
see  the  child,"  replied  Daniel.  "You  should  not  be  envious  of  a 
creature  whom  God  brought  into  the  world  so  that  the  world  may  be 
more  beautiful." 

"Don't  speak  of  God!"  said  Gertrude  quickly  and  with  uplifted 
hand.  Then,  after  a  pause,  during  which  Daniel  looked  at  her 
angrily,  she  added  with  a  painful  smile:  "The  very  idea:  I,  jealous, 
envious!  O  no,  Daniel." 

The  way  she  pressed  her  hands  to  her  bosom  convinced  Daniel, 
and  quite  emphatically  too,  that  she  did  not  know  the  feeling  of 
envy  or  jealousy.  He  said  nothing,  but  remained  in  her  room  for 
an  unusually  long  while.  When  she  was  cutting  bread,  she  let  the 
knife  fall.  He  sprang  and  picked  it  up  for  her.  He  had  never 
done  this  before.  Gertrude  looked  at  him  as  he  bent  over.  Her 
eyes  became  dim,  flared  up,  and  then  became  dim  again. 

"Don't  speak  of  God!"  Somehow  Daniel  could  not  get  these 
words  out  of  his  mind. 

When  Eleanore  returned  she  was  terrified  at  the  expression  on 
Daniel's  face.  He  seemed  dazed;  his  eyes  were  inflamed  as  though 
he  too  had  not  been  able  to  sleep;  he  could  hardly  talk.  Finally 
he  demanded  that  she  swear  to  him  never  to  go  away  again. 

She  hesitated  to  take  an  oath  of  this  kind,  but  he  became  more 
and  more  insistent,  and  she  took  it.  He  threw  his  arms  about  her 
with  passionate  impetuosity;  just  then  the  door  opened,  and 
Gertrude  stood  on  the  threshold.  Daniel  hastened  to  her,  and 


256  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

wanted  to  take  her  by  the  hand;  but  she  stepped  back  and  back 
until  she  reached  her  bedroom. 

It  was  evening;  covers  were  laid  for  four:  Jordan  was  to  take 
dinner  with  them  that  evening.  He  came  down  promptly;  Elea- 
nore  brought  in  the  food;  but  Gertrude  was  nowhere  to  be  found. 
Eleanore  went  in  to  her.  She  was  sitting  by  the  cradle,  combing 
her  hair  with  slow  deliberation. 

"Won't  you  eat  with  us,  Gertrude?"  asked  Eleanore. 

Gertrude  did  not  seem  to  hear  her.  In  a  few  minutes  she  got 
up,  walked  over  to  the  mirror  on  the  wall,  pressed  her  hair  with 
the  palms  of  her  hands  to  her  two  cheeks,  and  looked  in  the  mirror 
with  wide-opened  eyes. 

"Come,  Gertrude,"  said  Eleanore,-  rather  timidly,  "Daniel  is 
waiting." 

"That  they  are  in  there  again,"  murmured  Gertrude,  "it  seems 
like  a  sin."  She  turned  around,  and  beckoned  to  Eleanore. 

Eleanore  went  over  to  her  in  perfect  obedience.  Gertrude 
threw  her  arms  around  her  neck  until  her  left  temple  touched 
Eleanore^  right  one  with  only  her  hair  hanging  between  them 
like  a  curtain.  Gertrude  again  looked  in  the  mirror;  her  eyes 
became  rigid;  she  said:  "Oh  yes,  you  are  more  beautiful,  much 
more  beautiful,  a  hundred  times  more  beautiful." 

Just  then  the  child  began  to  stir,  and  since  Gertrude  was  still 
standing  immovable  before  the  mirror,  Eleanore  went  to  the 
cradle.  Hardly  had  Gertrude  noticed  what  she  had  done,  when 
she  rushed  out  and  cried  with  terrifying  rudeness:  "Don't  touch 
that  child!  Don't  touch  it,  I  say!"  She  then  went  up,  snatched 
the  child  from  the  cradle,  and  went  back  to  her  bed  with  it, 
saying  gently  and  yet  threateningly:  "It  belongs  to  me,  to  me  and 
to  no  one  else." 

Since  this  incident,  Eleanore  knew  that  a  fearful  change  had 
come  over  her  sister.  She  did  not  know  whether  other  people 
noticed  it;  she  did  not  even  know  whether  Daniel  was  aware  of 
it.  But  she  knew  it,  and  it  frightened  her. 

One  afternoon,  about  sunset,  Eleanore  came  in  and  found  Ger- 
trude on  her  knees  in  the  hall  scrubbing  the  floor.  "You  shouldn't 
do  that,  Gertrude,"  said  Eleanore,  "you  are  not  strong  enough  for 
that  kind  of  work  yet." 

Gertrude  made  no  reply;  she  kept  on  scrubbing. 

"Why  don't  you  dress  better?"  continued  Eleanore;  "Daniel 
does  not  like  to  see  you  going  about  in  that  ugly  old  brown  skirt. 
Believe  me,  it  makes  him  angry." 


PHILIPPINA  STARTS  A  FIRE  257 

Gertrude  straightened  up  on  her  knees,  and  said  with  discon- 
certing humility:  "You  dress  up;  it  is  not  well  for  two  to  look 
so  nice.  What  shall  I  do? "  she  asked,  and  let  her  head  sink. 
"You  wear  your  gold  chain  and  the  corals  in  your  ears.  That 
pleases  me;  that  is  the  way  it  should  be.  But  I  have  no  gold 
chain;  I  have  no  corals.  If  I  had  them,  I  wouldn't  wear  them; 
and  if  I  wore  them,  it  would  not  be  right." 

"Ah,  Gertrude,  what  are  you  talking  about?"  asked  Eleanore. 

The  ringing  of  the  church  bells  could  be  heard  in  the  hall. 
Gertrude  folded  her  hands  in  prayer.  There  was  a  stern  solem- 
nity in  her  action.  In  her  kneeling  position  she  looked  as  though 
she  were  petrified. 

Eleanore  went  into  the  room  with  a  heavy  heart. 


XI 

Through  the  dividing  walls  Daniel  and  Eleanore  were  irre- 
sistibly drawn  to  each  other.  They  accompanied  each  other  in 
their  thoughts;  each  divined  the  other's  wishes  and  feelings.  If 
he  came  home  in  a  bad  humour,  if  she  was  anxious  and  restless, 
they  both  needed  merely  to  sit  down  by  each  other  to  regain  their 
peace. 

If  Daniel's  power  of  persuasion  was  great,  Eleanor's  example 
was  equally  great.  A  dish  would  displease  Daniel.  Eleanore 
would  not  only  eat  it,  but  would  praise  it;  and  Daniel  would  then 
eat  it  too,  and  like  it.  Gertrude  had  prepared  the  food,  and 
Eleanore  felt  it  was  her  duty  to  spare  her  sister  as  much  humilia- 
tion as  possible.  But  Gertrude  did  not  want  to  be  treated  indul- 
gently. She  would  lay  her  knife  and  fork  aside,  and  say:  "Daniel 
is  right.  It  is  not  fit  to  eat."  She  would  get  up  and  go  into  the 
kitchen  and  make  a  porridge  that  would  take  the  place  of  the 
inedible  dish.  That  was  the  way  she  acted:  she  was  always  re- 
signed, diligent,  and  quiet;  she  made  every  possible  effort  to  do 
her  duty.  Daniel  and  Eleanore  looked  at  each  other  embarrassed; 
but  their  embarrassment  was  transformed  in  time  into  mutual 
ecstasy:  they  could  not  keep  from  looking  at  each  other. 

There  was  nothing  of  the  seducer  in  Daniel's  sexual  equip- 
ment. On  the  other  hand  he  was  dependent  to  a  very  high  degree 
upon  his  wishes  and  desires;  and  in  his  passionate  obstinacy  he  not 
infrequently  lacked  consideration.  Eleanore  however  possessed  pro- 
found calmness,  cheerful  certainty,  and  a  goodly  measure  of  indul- 
gence; and  she  knew  exactly  how  to  make  use  of  these  traits.  The 


258  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

claims  that  were  made  on  her  patience  and  moderation  would  have 
harassed  a  heart  steeled  in  the  actualities  of  politics  and  flooded 
with  worldly  experiences.  She  however  found  a  safe  and  unerring 
guide  in  the  instincts  of  her  nature,  and  was  never  tired. 

The  trait  in  her  to  which  he  took  most  frequent  and  violent 
exception  was  what  he  called  her  plebeian  caution;  she  seemed 
determined  to  pay  due  and  conventional  respect  to  appearances. 
He  did  not  wish  to  lay  claim  to  the  hours  of  his  love  as  though 
they  were  a  stolen  possession;  he  did  not  wish  to  sneak  across 
bridges  and  through  halls;  he  did  not  wish  to  whisper;  he  did  not 
wish  to  lie  in  wait  for  a  secret  tryst;  he  rebelled  at  the  thought  of 
coming  and  going  in  fear  and  trembling. 

There  is  not  the  slightest  use  to  investigate  all  the  secrecies  be- 
tween Daniel  and  Eleanore.  It  will  serve  no  useful  end  to  in- 
fringe with  unskilled  hand  on  the  work  of  the  evil  spirit  Asmodeus, 
who  makes  walls  transparent  and  allows  his  devotees  to  look  into 
bed  chambers.  It  would  be  futile  to  act  as  the  spy  of  Daniel  and 
show  how  he  left  the  attic  room  in  the  dead  of  night  and  crept 
down  the  stairs  in  felt  slippers.  We  have  no  desire  to  hear  of 
Eleanore's  pangs  of  conscience  and  her  longings,  her  flights,  her 
waiting  in  burning  suspense;  to  relate  how  she  endeavoured  to 
avert  the  inevitable  to-day  and  succumbed  to-morrow  would  be 
to  tell  an  idle  tale.  It  is  best  to  overlook  all  these  things;  to 
draw  a  curtain  of  mercy  before  them;  for  they  are  so  human  and 
so  wholly  without  a  trace  of  the  miraculous. 

It  will  be  enough  to  touch  upon  a  single  night  on  which  Daniel 
went  to  Eleanore's  room  and  said:  "I  have  never  yet  seen  you  as  a 
lover  sees  his  beloved."  Eleanore  was  sitting  on  the  edge  of  her 
bed,  trembling.  She  blew  out  the  candle.  Daniel  heard  the 
rustling  of  her  clothes.  She  went  up  to  the  stove  and  opened  the 
front  draft  door.  There  was  a  red  hot  coal  fire  in  the  stove. 
She  stood  before  him  with  the  purple  glow  of  the  burning  coals 
upon  her  body,  slender,  delicate,  nude.  Her  figure,  peculiarly 
beautiful,  was  filled  with  the  most  harmonious  of  inspiration;  it 
was  ensouled.  And  since  the  play  of  her  limbs,  as  they  became 
conscious  of  the  light,  was  suddenly  stiffened  with  shame,  Elea- 
nore bent  her  head  over  to  the  wall  where  the  mask  of  Zingarella, 
which  he  had  given  her,  was  hanging.  She  took  it  down,  and 
held  it  with  both  hands  so  that  the  purple  glow  from  the  stove  fell 
also  on  it.  As  she  did  this  she  smiled  in  a  way  that  cut  Daniel 
to  the  very  heart:  something  eternal  came  over  him;  he  had  a 
premonition  of  the  end;  he  feared  fate. 


PHILIPPINA  STARTS  A  FIRE  259 

At  the  same  time  Gertrude  rose  up  in  her  bed,  and  stared  with 
eyes  as  if  she  were  beholding,  who  knows  whom?  at  the  door. 
After  she  had  stared  for  a  long  while,  she  got  up,  opened  the  door, 
went  out  into  the  hall  without  making  the  slightest  noise,  came 
back,  went  out  again,  came  back  again,  and  got  in  bed,  left  the 
door  open,  sat  upright  and  gazed  at  the  closed  door  across  the  hall 
behind  which  she  knew  Daniel  and  Eleanore  were.  Her  hair 
hung  down  in  two  long  braids  on  either  side  of  her  head.  Her 
pale  face  in  this  frame  of  black  hair  above  it  and  on  both  sides  of 
it  looked  like  a  wax  figure  in  an  old  black  frame. 

Of  the  pictures  that  were  being  formed  in  her  mind  and  soul, 
there  was  not  a  single  twitching  of  the  muscles  to  indicate  what 
they  looked  like. 

For  her  the  entire  world  lay  behind  that  door.  It  seemed  to 
her  that  she  could  no  longer  endure  the  knowledge  she  had  of 
what  was  taking  place.  In  her  maddened  imagination  she  saw 
women  stealing  through  the  halls  of  the  house;  in  every  corner 
there  was  a  woman,  and  with  every  woman  there  was  a  man;  they 
embraced  each  other,  and  sank  their  teeth  into  each  other's  flesh.  It 
was  all  as  criminal  as  it  was  irrational;  it  was  a  shame  and  an 
abomination  to  behold.  Everywhere  she  looked  she  saw  repre- 
hensible nudeness;  all  clothes  seemed  to  be  made  of  glass;  she 
could  look  neither  at  a  man  nor  at  a  woman  without  turning  pale. 
She  had  only  one  refuge:  the  cradle  of  her  child.  She  would 
rush  to  it  and  pray.  But  as  soon  as  her  prayer  was  ended  she 
again  felt  stifled  in  the  poisoned  air  about  her,  while  the  desire 
to  acquit  herself  of  the  crime  of  which  she  felt  guilty,  unable 
though  she  was  to  define  the  crime  or  determine  her  part  in  it, 
robbed  her  of  her  sleep.  She  felt  that  a  great  jagged  stone  was 
suspended  over  her  head,  that  it  was  becoming  less  and  less  firmly 
attached  every  day,'  and  that  its  fall  if  not  imminent  was 
certain. 

Hour  after  hour  passed  by;  Daniel  finally  appeared  in  the 
vestibule.  He  was  not  a  little  terrified  when  he  saw  the  burning 
lamp  and  Gertrude  sitting  up  in  bed. 

He  went  into  the  bedroom,  closed  the  door,  walked  up  to  the 
cradle,  looked  at  the  child,  and  then  went  over  to  Gertrude.  She 
cast  a  glance  of  infinite  inquiry  at  him.  It  was  a  look  that  seemed 
to  implore  him  for  a  decision,  a  judgment.  At  the  same  time  she 
put  out  her  hands  as  if  to  ward  off  any  approach  on  his  part. 
When  she  saw  that  he  was  astonished,  she  softened  the  expression 
on  her  face,  and  said:  "Give  me  your  hand." 


260  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

She  took  his  right  hand,  stroked  it,  and  whispered:  "Poor  hand, 
poor  hand." 

Daniel  bit  his  lips:  "Oh  woman,  what  .  .  .?"     That  was  all. 

He  sat  down  in  silence  on  the  edge  of  her  bed.  Gertrude  looked 
at  him  in  the  same  tense,  anxious  way  in  which  she  had  studied 
him  a  few  moments  earlier.  He  sank  down  beside  her,  and  fell 
asleep  with  his  head  on  her  breast. 

She  kept  en  holding  his  hand.  She  looked  into  his  pale,  narrow 
face  and  at  his  angular  brow,  the  skin  of  which  could  be  seen  to 
twitch  every  now  and  then  under  the  loose  flowing  hair  that  hung 
over  it.  The  oil  in  the  lamp  was  getting  low,  the  wick  had 
begun  to  smell.  She  was  afraid  however  to  put  it  out  lest  she 
might  waken  Daniel.  She  looked  on  in  silence  as  the  light  became 
dimmer  and  dimmer  and  finally  went  out,  leaving  only  the  red 
glow  of  the  wick.  This  too  died  away  in  time,  and  it  became  dark. 

XII 

For  some  time  Eleanore  had  noticed  that  the  bafcer's  boy,  instead 
of  carefully  putting  the  rolls  in  the  sack  each  morning  as  had 
always  been  his  custom,  threw  them  through  the  lattice  on  to  the 
ground. 

The  newspaper  boy  stopped  speaking  to  her;  the  postman  smiled 
scornfully;  and  even  the  beggar,  at  least  she  thought  so,  asked  for 
his  alms  in  a  tone  of  impudence. 

One  day  she  was  passing  through  Schmausen  Street;  a  woman 
was  leaning  out  of  the  window.  Seeing  Eleanore  coming,  she 
called  back  into  the  room,  whereupon  a  young  man  and  three  half- 
grown  girls  rushed  to  the  window,  began  making  remarks  to  each 
other,  and  gaped  at  her  with  looks  that  made  her  turn  deathly 
pale. 

Another  time  Daniel  brought  her  a  free  ticket  to  a  concert. 
She  went,  and  as  soon  as  she  reached  the  hall  she  was  struck  by 
the  discourteous  and  indecent  manner  in  which  the  bystanders 
looked  at  her.  A  well-dressed  woman  moved  away  from  her. 
Some  men  kept  walking  around  her,  grinning  at  her.  She  found 
ii  intolerable,  and  went  home. 

Exercise  in  the  open  had  often  driven  away  the  cares  that 
chanced  to  be  weighing  upon  her:  she  went  skating.  As  soon  as 
the  people  saw  her,  they  began  to  whisper  among  themselves.  She 
did  not  bother  about  them  or  their  remarks;  she  cut  her  beautiful 
ngures  on  the  ice  as  if  she  were  quite  alone.  A  group  of  young 


PHILIPPINA  STARTS  A  FIRE  261 

girls  pointed  at  her  with  their  fingers.  She  went  up  to  them  with 
pride  glistening  in  her  eyes,  and  they  all  ran  away.  Those  who 
had  formerly  paid  homage  to  her  avoided  her  now.  Her  soul 
rebelled  within  her;  meeting  with  so  much  unexpected  and  cow- 
ardly vulgarity  enflamed  her  sensibilities  and  ennobled  her  self- 
respect. 

One  day  in  December  she  crossed  the  Wine  Market,  and  started 
to  pass  through  a  narrow  street  that  led  to  the  Halle  Gate.  Stand- 
ing at  the  entrance  to  the  alley  were  a  number  of  men  engaged  ia 
conversation.  She  recognised  Alfons  Diruf  among  them.  She 
thought  they  would  step  to  one  side  and  let  her  pass,  but  not  one 
of  them  moved.  They  gaped  at  her  in  unmitigated  shamelessness. 
She  could  have  turned  about  and  taken  another  street,  but  that 
defiance  on  the  part  of  those  men  made  her  insist  upon  her  rights 
to  go  the  way  she  had  originally  decided  upon.  Impressed,  appar- 
ently, by  the  flaming  blue  of  her  eyes,  the  scoundrels  at  last  con- 
descended to  shift  their  lazy  frames  to  one  side.  They  formed 
an  espalier  through  which  she  had  to  walk.  But  worse  than  this 
were  the  lewd  looks  that  she  knew  were  following  her,  and  the 
laughter  that  greeted  her  ears.  It  was  the  type  of  laughter  ordi- 
narily heard  at  night  when  one  passes  a  low  dive,  in  which  the 
scum  of  human  society  has  gathered  to  amuse  itself  by  the  telling 
of  salacious  stories. 

She  often  had  the  feeling,  particularly  after  dark,  that  some 
one  was  following  her.  Once  she  looked  around,  and  a  man  was 
behind  her.  He  wore  a  havelock;  he  turned  quickly  into  a  gate. 
A  few  days  later  she  had  a  similar  experience,  but  this  time  she 
was  frightened  worse  than  ever,  for  she  thought  it  was  Herr 
Carovius. 

One  evening  as  she  was  leaving  the  house  she  saw  the  same 
figure  standing  by  the  church  on  the  other  side  of  the  street.  As 
she  hesitated  and  wondered  whether  she  should  go  on,  another 
person  joined  the  first.  She  thought  it  was  Philippina.  The  two 
began  to  talk,  but  Eleanore  could  not  make  out  who  they  were;  it 
was  snowing,  and  there  was  no  street  lamp  nearby. 

She  could  not  tell  why,  but  she  was  suddenly  seized  with 
anxiety  for  Daniel;  for  him  and  for  no  one  else.  She  felt  that 
unless  she  went  back  something  dreadful  would  happen  to  him. 
She  rushed  up  the  steps  to  the  attic  room,  and  knocked  at  his 
door;  there  was  not  a  sound.  She  opened  the  door  and  went  in, 
but  everything  was  dark.  In  the  darkness,  however,  standing  out 
against  the  white  background  from  the  light  of  the  snow,  she  saw 


262  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

his  body.  He  was  sitting  at  the  piano;  he  had  his  arms  on  the  lid, 
his  head  between  his  hands.  Eleanore  hastened  up  to  him,  and, 
with  a  tone  of  sweet  sadness  in  what  she  said,  threw  her  arms 
around  his  neck. 

Daniel  took  her  on  his  lap,  pressed  her  head  to  his  bosom,  and 
laughed  with  open  mouth  and  shining  teeth  but  without  making 
a  sound.  He  often  laughed  that  way  now. 

xin 

He  laughed  that  way  at  the  intrigues  that  were  being  forged 
against  him  by  his  bitterest  enemy,  Fraulein  Varini,  and  which 
resulted  in  his  meeting  with  distrust  and  opposition  in  everything 
he  undertook  at  the  City  Theatre. 

He  laughed  that  way  at  the  anonymous  letters,  filled  with  insult- 
ing remarks,  which  were  being  sent  him  by  his  fellow  citizens, 
and  which  he  read  with  naTve  curiosity  merely  to  see  how  far 
human  nastiness  and  bestial  hate  could  go. 

He  laughed  that  way  when  he  received  the  letter  from  Baroness 
von  Auffenberg  informing  him  that  she  was  forced  to  discontinue 
her  lessons  and  recitals.  She  said  that  her  constitution  had  been 
weakened,  and  that  she  was  going  to  close  her  town  house  and  spend 
the  winter  at  her  country  place  at  Hersbruck.  Daniel  heard  how- 
ever that  she  spent  a  great  deal  of  her  time  in  town,  and  that  she 
had  arranged  for  an  elaborate  cycle  of  musicales,  a  thing  she  had 
never  dared  to  do  under  his  administration.  Andreas  Doderlein 
had  been  engaged  as  her  musical  adviser:  now  she  could  rave  and 
go  into  ecstasies  and  hypnotise  her  impotent  soul  in  the  mephitic 
air  of  artificial  aroma  just  as  much  as  she  pleased. 

And  he  laughed  that  way  at  the  weekly  attacks  upon  him  and 
his  art  that  appeared  in  the  Fr'dnkischer  Herold,  copies  of  which 
were  delivered  at  his  front  door  with  the  regularity  of  the  sun. 
The  attacks  consisted  of  sly,  caustic  sneers,  secrets  that  had  been 
ferreted  out  with  dog-like  keenness,  gigantic  broadsides  based  on 
hearsay  evidence,  and  perfidious  suspicions  lodged  against  Daniel 
Nothafft,  the  artist,  and  Daniel  Nothafft,  the  man. 

The  articles  never  failed  to  mention  the  Goose  Man.  Daniel 
asked  to  have  the  allusion  explained.  The  Goose  Man  was  elevated 
to  the  rank  and  dignity  of  an  original  humourist.  "What  is  the 
latest  concerning  the  Goose  Man?"  became  a  standing  head-line. 
Or  the  reader's  eye  would  fall  on  the  following  notice:  "The 
Goose  Man  is  again  attracting  the  attention  of  all  friends  of 


PHILIPPINA  STARTS  A  FIRE  263 

music.  He  has  had  the  ingenious  audacity  to  make  the  opera 
'Stradella'  more  enjoyable  by  the  interpolation  of  a  funeral  march 
of  his  own  make.  The  ever-submissive  domestic  birds  which  he 
carries  under  his  arms  have  rewarded  him  for  his  efforts  in  this 
connection  by  the  cackling  of  their  abundant  and  affectionate  grati- 
tude." 

The  birthplace  of  these  inimitable  achievements  in  the  field  of 
journalistic  wit  was  the  reserved  table  at  the  Crocodile.  If  ever 
in  the  history  of  the  world  men  have  laughed  real  honest  tears 
it  was  at  the  writing  of  such  news  bearing  on  the  life  and  conduct 
of  the  Goose  Man.  The  editor-in-chief,  Weibezahl,  was  the 
recording  secretary  at  these  intellectual  Olympiads,  and  Herr 
Carovius  was  the  protagonist.  He  had  access  to  reliable  sources, 
as  newspaper  men  say,  and  every  evening  he  surprised  the  round 
table  with  new  delicacies  for  Weibezahl's  columns. 

Daniel  was  ignorant  of  what  was  going  on.  But  the  Goose 
Man,  the  expression  as  well  as  the  figure,  became  interwoven  with 
his  thoughts,  and  acquired,  somehow  and  somewhere  in  the  course 
of  time,  a  transfigured  meaning. 

XIV 

One  day  Frau  Kirschner  wrote  to  Daniel  telling  him  that  she 
did  not  wish  to  have  anything  more  to  do  with  him;  she  demanded 
in  the  same  letter  that  he  pay  back  the  money  she  had  advanced 
him.  He  could  not  raise  it:  the  City  Theatre  had  already  made 
him  a  loan,  he  had  no  friends,  and  M.  Riviere,  the  only  person 
on  earth  who  might  have  been  able  to  come  to  his  rescue,  had 
gone  back  to  France. 

Matters  took  their  usual  course:  A  lawyer  notified  Daniel,  giving 
him  so  many  days  grace;  when  these  had  elapsed  and  no  payment 
had  been  made,  a  summons  was  served  on  him;  the  sheriff  came  in, 
and  in  default  of  any  other  object  of  value  he  pawned  the  piano. 

Daniel's  objections  were  quite  ineffectual:  a  few  days  more  and 
the  piano  would  be  put  up  at  auction. 

One  gloomy  morning  in  January  Philippina  entered  his  room. 

"Say,  Daniel,"  she  began,  "would  you  like  to  have  some  money 
from  me?" 

Daniel  turned  his  head  slowly  and  looked  at  her  in  amazement. 

"I  have  lots  of  it,"  she  continued  with  her  hoarse  voice,  her 
glassy  eyes  glittering  underneath  her  bangs.  "I  have  been  saving 
it  a  pfennig  at  a  time  ever  since  1  was  a  child.  I  can  give  you 


264  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

the  money  you  owe  the  Councillor's  wife.  Sling  it  at  her,  the 
old  hag!  Say  to  me:  'Please  Philippina,  give  me  the  money,'  and 
you'll  find  it  on  the  table." 

"Are  you  crazy?"  asked  Daniel,  "get  out  of  here  just  as  quickly 
as  your  feet  can  carry  you!"  He  felt  distinctly  creepy  in  her 
presence. 

Philippina,  beside  herself  with  rage,  seized  his  hand.  Before 
he  could  do  a  thing  she  bit  him  just  below  the  little  finger.  The 
wound  was  quite  deep.  He  groaned,  shook  her  off,  and  pushed 
her  back.  She  looked  at  him  triumphantly,  but  her  face  had 
turned  yellow. 

"Listen,  Daniel,"  she  said  in  a  begging,  beseeching  tone, 
"don't  be  so  ugly!  Don't  be  so  mean  toward  me!  Don't  be  so 
jealous!" 

The  wench's  infamous  smile,  her  hair  hanging  down  over  her 
eyes,  her  big  red  hands,  the  snow-flakes  on  her  short  cloak,  the 
border  on  her  fiery  red  dress  below  her  cloak,  and  the  poison 
green  ribbon  on  her  hat — this  ensemble  of  ugliness  filled  Daniel 
with  the  loathing  he  might  have  experienced  had  he  stood  face  to 
face  with  the  most  detestable  picture  he  had  ever  seen  from  the 
world  of  human  beings.  But  as  he  turned  his  head,  a  feeling  of 
sympathy  came  over  him;  he  suspected  that  the  girl  was  bound 
to  him  by  bonds  that  did  not  reach  him  until  after  they  had 
taken  their  course  through  the  dark  channels  of  some  subterranean 
labyrinth.  What  she  had  done  filled  him  with  dismay;  but  as  a 
revelation  of  character  it  surprised  him  and  set  him  to  thinking. 

He  went  over  to  the  washing  table  to  put  his  bleeding  hand 
in  the  water.  Philippina  took  a  fresh  handkerchief  from  the 
cabinet,  and  handed  it  to  him  as  a  bandage.  He  looked  at  her 
with  piercing  eyes,  and  said:  "What  kind  of  a  person  are  you? 
What  sort  of  a  devil  is  in  you,  anyway?  Be  careful,  Jason  Philip's 
daughter,  be  careful!" 

Since  there  was  a  tone  of  kindness  in  these  words,  the  muscles 
of  Philippina's  face  moved  in  a  mysterious  way.  Her  features 
were  distorted  as  if  by  a  grin,  and  yet  she  was  not  grinning.  She 
drew  a  leather  purse  from  her  cloak  pocket,  opened  it,  and  took 
out  two  one-hundred-mark  notes  and  a  gold  coin.  They  had  been 
wrapped  in  paper.  She  unfolded  the  paper  and  the  notes,  laid 
them,  together  with  the  coin,  on  the  table,  and  handed  Daniel  a 
written  statement. 

He  read  it:  "I,  the  undersigned,  Daniel  Nothafft,  promise  to  pay 


PHILIPPINA  STARTS  A  FIRE  265 

to  Philippina  Schimmelweis  two  hundred  and  twenty  marks  at 
five  per  cent  interest,  for  value  received." 

"With  that  you  c'n  pay  the  sheriff  and  git  yourself  out  of  this 
mess,"  said  Philippina,  in  a  most  urgent  tone.  "You  can't  give 
piano  lessons  on  a  rolling  pin,  and  that  music  box  of  yours  is  after 
all  the  tool  you  make  your  living  by.  Sign  that,  and  you  will 
be  in  peace." 

"Where  did  you  get  the  money?"  asked  Daniel.  "How  did 
you  ever  come  by  so  much  money?  Tell  me  the  truth."  All  of 
a  sudden  he  remembered  Theresa's  words:  "All  that  nice  money, 
all  that  nice  money!" 

Philippina  began  to  chew  her  finger  nails.  "That's  none  of 
your  business,"  she  said  gruffly,  "it  ain't  been  stolen.  Moreover, 
I  c'n  tell  you,"  she  said,  as  she  felt  that  his  distrust  was  taking  on 
a  threatening  aspect,  "mother  give  it  to  me  on  the  sly.  She 
didn't  want  me  to  be  without  a  penny  if  anything  happened.  For 
my  father — he  would  like  to  see  me  strung  up.  She  give  it  to  me, 
I  say,  on  the  side,  and  she  made  me  swear  before  the  cross  that  I 
would  never  let  any  one  know  about  it." 

This  tale  of  horror  made  Daniel  shake  his  head;  he  had  his 
doubts.  He  felt  she  was  lying,  and  yet  there  was  a  mysterious 
force  back  of  her  statement  and  in  her  eyes.  He  was  undecided; 
he  thought  it  over.  His  livelihood  was  at  stake.  Weeks,  months 
might  pass  by  before  he  could  get  another  piano.  Philippina's 
readiness  to  help  him  was  a  riddle  to  him,  everything  she  said  was 
repulsive  and  banal;  but  after  all  she  was  willing  to  help  in  a  most 
substantial  way,  and  he  was  in  such  difficulties  that  voices  of 
admonition  simply  had  to  be  drowned  out. 

"It  is  nothing  but  money,"  he  thought  contemptuously,  and 
sat  down  to  put  his  name  to  the  note. 

Philippina  drew  up  her  shoulders,  and  never  once  breathed  until 
he  had  signed  the  note  and  handed  it  over  to  her  in  silence.  Then 
she  looked  at  him  imploringly,  and  said:  "Now  Daniel,  you  must 
never  again  treat  me  like  you  would  a  scurvy  cat." 


There  had  been  an  unusual  amount  of  talk  this  year  about  the 
parade  on  Shrove  Tuesday.  On  the  afternoon  of  that  day  the 
whole  city  was  on  its  feet. 

Daniel   was  on   his  way   home;   he   had   reached    the   corner   of 


266  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

Theresa  Street  when  he  ran  into  the  crowd.  He  stopped  out  of 
idle  curiosity.  The  first  division  of  the  parade  came  up:  it  con- 
sisted of  three  heralds  in  gaudy  medieval  costumes,  and  back  of 
them  were  three  councillors  on  horseback. 

Next  in  the  procession  was  a  condemned  witch  on  a  wheel- 
barrow. Her  face  had  been  hideously  painted,  and  in  her  hand 
she  swung  a  huge  whiskey  bottle.  She  was  followed  by  a  group 
of  Chinese,  each  with  a  long  pigtail,  and  they  by  a  troupe  of 
dancing  Kameruns. 

The  procession  moved  on  in  the  following  order:  a  giant  carry- 
ing twenty-seven  quart  beer  mugs;  a  woman's  orchestra  consisting 
exclusively  of  old  women;  a  wagon  from  one  of  the  peasant  dis- 
tricts bearing  the  inscription,  "Adorers  of  Taxes";  a  smoking  club 
with  the  Swedish  match  merchant;  a  wagon  with  a  replica  of  the 
Spittler  Gate  made  of  beer  kegs;  the  so-called  guard  against 
sparks;  a  nurse  with  a  grown  child  in  diapers  and  Hussar  boots; 
the  seven  Swabians  on  velocipedes;  a  cabriolet  with  a  gaily  dressed 
English  family;  a  conveyance  carrying  authors.  There  were  two 
inscriptions  on  it:  "The  And  So  Forths"  and  "The  Et  Ceterists." 

At  the  end  of  the  procession  was  a  wagon  with  a  skilful  imita- 
tion of  the  Goose  Man.  It  had  been  made  out  of  old  boards, 
hoops,  clay,  old  rags,  and  iron.  The  Goose  Man  himself  wore 
an  open  velvet  doublet  and  short  velvet  trousers,  from  the  pockets 
of  which  protruded  rolls  of  banknotes.  Instead  of  a  cap  he  had 
a  rusty  pan  on  his  head,  and  on  his  feet  was  a  pair  of  worn 
patent  leather  shoes.  Under  each  arm  he  carried  a  goose.  The 
geese  had  been  made  of  dough.  Their  heads  were  not  the  heads 
of  geese  but  of  women  artificially  painted  and  with  so-called  taws, 
or  marbles,  for  their  eyes.  The  face  at  the  Goose  Man's  left 
looked  melancholy,  the  one  at  his  right  was  cheerful. 

This  was  the  centre  of  attraction;  it  was  surrounded  by  the 
largest  crowds.  Every  time  it  came  within  sight  of  a  fresh  group 
of  on-lookers  there  was  a  tremendous  shouting  and  waving  of  flags. 
This  was  true  even  where  it  was  plain  that  the  people  did  not 
appreciate  the  significance  of  it.  Pulchinellos  brandished  their 
wooden  swords,  Indian  chieftains  danced  around  it  screaming  their 
mighty  war-whoops,  a  Mephistopheles  turned  somersaults,  knights 
mounted  on  stilts  saluted,  and  children  with  wax  masks  shrieked 
until  it  was  impossible  to  hear  one's  own  voice. 

Daniel  had  watched  the  performance  with  relative  indifference. 
He  had  regarded  it  merely  as  a  display  of  commonplace  ability 
to  amuse  the  people.  Then  came  the  wagon  with  the  imitation 


PHILIPPINA  STARTS  A  FIRE  267 

of  the  Goose  Man.  On  it  stood  Schwalbe  the  sculptor,  gloriously 
drunk.  Beside  him  stood  Kropotkin  the  painter  in  his  shirt 
sleeves,  apparently  oblivious  to  the  fact  that  it  was  cold.  A  fear- 
fully fat  youth — a  future  school  officer,  so  far  as  could  be  deter- 
mined from  his  looks — had  hit  upon  the  happy  idea  of  pasting 
the  title  of  the  Frankischer  Herald  to  the  Goose  Man's  hat.  This 
took  the  initiated  by  storm. 

Kropotkin  recognised  Daniel.  He  called  to  him,  threw  him 
kisses,  had  one  of  the  wooden  swords  given  him,  and  went  through 
the  motion  of  directing  an  orchestra.  The  fat  boy  hurled  a  hand- 
ful of  pretzels  at  the  spot  on  the  sidewalk  where  Daniel  was 
standing;  a  trombone  began  to  bray;  the  Englishman  first  stuck 
his  head  out  of  his  cabriolet,  and  then  got  out  and  hopped  over  to 
Daniel,  carrying  a  pole  draped  with  women's  clothes,  including 
a  feather  hat  and  a  veil.  A  new  keg  of  beer  was  tapped  on  the 
Gambrinus  wagon,  while  the  people  in  the  houses  rushed  to  the 
windows  and  roared.  * 

"You  have  forgotten  the  railing,"  cried  Daniel  in  a  loud  voice 
to  the  people  on  the  Goose  Man  wagon. 

"What  did  he  say? "  they  asked,  and  looked  at  each  other  in 
astonishment.  The  on-lookers  were  filled  with  curioui  silence; 
many  of  them  gazed  at  Daniel,  bewildered. 

"You  forgot  the  railing,"  he  repeated,  with  glistening  eyes^ 
"you  have  forgotten  the  iron  railing.  Without  his  protection  the 
poor  Goose  Man  is  to  be  sure  your  buffoon,  your  zany,  your 
clown." 

He  laughed  quietly,  and,  with  opened  mouth  and  shining  teeth, 
quickly  withdrew  from  the  innumerable  gapers.  Having  reached 
a  deserted  alley,  he  began  to  sing  with  a  frenzied  expression  on 
his  face:  "Whom  thou  dost  not  desert,  oh  Genius,  him  wilt  thou 
raise  up  with  wings  of  fire.  He  will  wander  on  as  if  with  feet  of 
flowers  across  Deucalion's  seas  of  slime,  killing  Python,  light-footed, 
famed  Pythius  Apollo." 

XVI 

A  few  weeks  later  a  real  singer  came  to  Daniel.  She  sang 
several  of  the  songs  he  had  written.  He  had  thought  they  were 
completely  forgotten  by  everybody.  Her  art  was  not  merely  per- 
fect; it  was  wonderful. 

It  was  a  very  mysterious  visit  the  singer  paid  him.  One  after- 
noon during  a  fearful  snow  storm  the  bell  rang;  and  when  Gertrude 


268  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

opened  the  door,  she  saw  a  woman  wearing  a  heavy  black  veil 
standing  before  her,  who  said  she  wished  to  speak  to  Kapellmeister 
Nothafft.  Gertrude  took  her  up  to  Daniel's  room.  The  stranger 
told  Daniel  she  had  been  wishing  to  make  his  acquaintance  for  a 
long  time,  and,  now  on  her  way  to  Italy,  she  had  been  detained 
in  the  city  for  a  few  days  by  the  illness  of  a  near  friend.  This, 
she  said,  she  regarded  as  a  hint  from  fate  itself.  She  had  come 
to  extend  him  her  greetings,  and  particularly  to  thank  him  for  his 
songs,  a  copy  of  which  a  friend  had  been  good  enough  to  present 
to  her  at  a  time  when  she  was  living  under  the  weight  of  a  great 
sorrow. 

She  spoke  with  an  accent  that  had  a  Northern  note  in  it,  but 
easily  and  fluently;  she  gave  the  impression  of  a  woman  who  had 
seen  a  great  deal  of  the  world  and  had  profited  by  her  travels. 
Daniel  asked  her  with  whom  he  had  the  pleasure  of  speaking,  but 
she  smiled,  and  asked  permission  to  conceal  her  name  for  the 
present.  She  said  that  it  really  did  not  make  much  difference, 
and  that  it  might  be  more  agreeable  to  him  later  to  think  that  an 
unknown  woman  had  come  to  him  to  express  her  appreciation  than 
to  recall  that  Fraulein  So-and-So  had  been  there:  she  hoped  that 
her  very  anonymity  would  make  a  more  lasting  impression  on  his 
memory  than  could  be  made  by  a  woman  of  whom  he  knew  only 
what  everybody  knows. 

The  mingling  of  the  jocose  and  the  serious,  of  the  mind  and 
the  heart,  in  the  words  of  the  stranger  pleased  Daniel.  Though 
his  replies  were  curt  and  cool,  it  was  plain  that  she  was  affording 
him  much  pleasure:  she  was  reminding  him  of  the  fact  that  his 
creations  had  not  after  all  sunk  into  an  echoless  abyss.  In  course 
of  time,  the  conversation  turned  again  to  the  songs;  she  said  she 
would  like  very  much  to  sing  some  of  them  for  him.  Daniel  was 
pleased.  He  got  the  score,  sat  down  at  the  piano,  and  the  enig- 
matic woman  began  to  sing.  At  the  very  first  note  Daniel  was 
enraptured;  he  had  never  heard  such  a  voice:  so  soft,  so  pure,  so 
emotional,  so  unlike  the  conventional  product  of  the  conservatory. 
As  soon  as  she  had  finished  the  first  song,  he  looked  up  at  her  in 
unaffected  embarrassment,  and  murmured:  "Who  are  you,  any- 
how? Who  are  you?" 

"No  investigations  or  cross-questioning,  please,"  replied  the 
singer,  and,  blushing  at  the  praise  Daniel  was  bestowing  on  her 
by  his  very  behaviour,  she  laughed  and  said,  "The  next  song, 
please,  that  one  by  Eichendorff!" 

Gertrude,  who  had  not  wished  to  remain  longer  than  was  neces- 


PHILIPPINA  STARTS  A  FIRE  269 

• 

sary  because  of  the  unkempt  impression  she  knew  she  made,  had 
hastened  down  to  the  kitchen.  And  now  Eleanore  came  in,  after 
having  knocked  at  the  door  with  all  imaginable  timidity.  She  had 
heard  the  strange  voice,  had  rushed  out  into  the  hall,  and,  un- 
able to  restrain  her  curiosity  any  longer,  had  come  in  to  see  the 
singer. 

Daniel  nodded  to  her  with  radiant  eyes,  the  stranger  greeted 
her  cordially  though  calmly,  and  then  began  to  sing  the  next  song; 
after  this  she  took  up  the  third,  and  so  on  until  she  had  sung 
the  complete  cycle  of  six.  Old  Jordan  was  standing  behind  the 
door;  he  had  his  hands  pressed  to  his  face  and  was  listening;  he 
was  much  moved. 

"Well,  I  must  be  going,"  said  the  strange  woman,  after  she  had 
finished  the  last  song.  She  shook  hands  with  Daniel,  and  said: 
"It  has  been  a  beautiful  hour." 

"It  has  been  one  of  the  most  beautiful  hours  I  have  ever  experi- 
enced," said  Daniel. 

"Farewell!" 

"Farewell!" 

The  strange  woman  went  away,  leaving  behind  her  not  a  trace 
of  anything  other  than  the  memory  of  a  joy  that  grew  more 
fabulous  as  the  storm-tossed  years  rolled  by.  Daniel  never  saw 
her  again,  and  never  heard  from  her  again. 

xvn 

While  the  woman  was  singing,  Gertrude  had  been  standing  down 
in  the  hall  listening.  She  knew  every  note  of  every  song;  every 
melody  in  the  accompaniment  seemed  to  her  like  an  old,  familiar 
picture.  She  was  also  aware  that  an  artist  by  the  grace  of  God 
had  been  in  the  house. 

But  how  strange  it  was  that  she  should  find  nothing  unusual  in 
the  incident.  She  felt  that  a  living  stream  in  her  bosom  had  dried 
up,  leaving  nothing  but  sand  and  stones  in  its  bed.  This  inability 
to  feel,  this  being  dead  to  all  sensations,  took  the  form  of  excruciat- 
ing pangs  of  conscience. 

"My  God,  my  God,  what  has  happened  to  me?"  she  sighed, 
and  wrung  her  hands. 

That  evening  she  went  to  the  Church  of  Our  Lady,  and  prayed 
for  a  long  while.  Her  prayer  did  not  appease  her,  however;  she 
came  back  home  more  disquieted  than  ever. 

The   door  of  the  living  room  was  open:  Daniel   and   Eleanore 


270  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

were  sitting  by  the  lamp,  reading  together  from  a  book.  The 
baby  began  to  move;  Eleanore  had  left  the  door  open  so  that  she 
might  be  able  to  hear  the  child  when  it  woke  up.  Gertrude  took 
the  child  in  her  arms,  quieted  it,  and  returned  to  the  door  leading 
into  the  living  room.  Daniel  and  Eleanore  had  turned  their  backs 
to  the  door,  and  were  so  absorbed  in  their  reading  that  they  were 
not  aware  of  Gertrude's  presence. 

A  light  suddenly  came  into  Gertrude's  heart:  she  became  con- 
scious of  her  guilt — the  guilt  she  had  been  trying  in  vain  to 
fathom  now  for  so  many  cruel  weeks. 

She  did  not  have  enough  of  the  power  of  love;  therein  lay  her 
guilt.  She  had  assumed  an  obligation  that  was  quite  beyond  her 
power  to  fulfil:  she  had  entered  into  marriage  without  having 
the  requisite  strength  of  heart. 

Marriage  had  seemed  to  her  like  the  Holy  of  Holies.  Her 
union  with  the  man  she  loved  seemed  to  her  to  be  of  equal 
significance  with  the  union  with  God.  But  when  she  saw  that 
this  bond  had  been  broken,  the  world  was  plunged  into  an  abyss 
immeasurably  remote  from  God.  And  it  was  not  her  husband 
who  seemed  to  her  to  be  guilty  of  infidelity;  nor  did  she  look 
upon  her  sister  as  being  the  guilty  one;  it  was  she  herself  who  had 
been  unfaithful  and  guilty  in  their  eyes.  She  had  not  stood  the 
test;  she  had  been  tried  and  found  wanting;  her  strength  had  not 
been  equal  to  her  presumptions;  God  had  rejected  her.  This 
conviction  became  irrevocably  rooted  in  her  heart. 

In  her  union  with  Daniel  music  had  become  something  divine; 
and  she  saw,  now  this  union  had  been  broken,  something  in  music 
that  was  perilous,  something  that  was  to  be  avoided:  she  understood 
why  she  was  so  unemotional,  why  her  feelings  had  dried  up  and 
vanished. 

But  she  wanted  to  make  one  more  effort  to  see  whether  she 
was  entirely  right  in  the  analysis  of  her  soul.  One  morning  she 
went  to  Daniel,  and  asked  him  to  play  a  certain  passage  from  the 
"Harzreise."  She  said  she  would  like  to  hear  the  close  of  the 
slow  middle  movement  which  had  always  made  such  an  appeal  to 
her.  Her  request  was  made  in  such  an  urgent,  anxious  tone  that 
Daniel  granted  it,  though  he  did  not  feel  like  playing.  As 
Gertrude  listened,  she  became  paler  and  paler:  her  diagnosis  was 
being  corroborated  with  fearful  exactness.  What  had  once  been 
a  source  of  ecstasy  was  now  the  cause  of  intense  torture.  The 
tones  and  harmonics  seemed  to  be  eating  into  her  very  soul;  the 
pain  she  felt  was  so  overwhelming,  that  it  was  only  with  the  greatest 


PHILIPPINA  STARTS  A  FIRE  271 

exertion  that  she  mustered  up  sufficient  self-control  to  leave  the 
room  unaided.  Daniel  was  dismayed. 

On  her  return  to  the  kitchen,  Gertrude  heard  a  most  peculiar 
noise  in  her  bedroom.  She  went  in  only  to  see  that  little  Agnes 
had  crept  into  the  corner  of  the  room  where  the  harp  stood,  and 
was  striking  the  strings  with  a  copper  spoon,  highly  pleased  with 
her  actions.  Gertrude  was  seized  with  a  vague,  nameless  terror. 
She  took  the  harp  into  the  kitchen,  removed  the  strings  from  the 
frame,  rolled  them  up,  put  them  in  a  drawer,  and  carried  the 
stringless  frame  up  to  the  attic. 

"What  can  I  do?"  she  whispered  to  herself,  and  looked  around 
in  the  attic  with  an  expression  of  complete  helplessness.  She 
longed  for  peace,  and  it  seemed  peaceful  up  where  she  was.  She 
stayed  a  while,  leaning  up  against  one  of  the  beams,  her  eyes 
closed. 

"What  can  I  do?"  That  was  the  question  she  put  to  herself 
day  and  night.  "I  can  no  longer  be  of  any  help  to  my  husband; 
to  stand  in  his  way  merely  because  of  the  child  is  not  right." 
Such  was  the  trend  of  her  argument.  She  saw  how  he  was  suffer- 
ing, how  Eleanore  was  suffering,  how  each  was  suffering  on  account 
of  the  other,  and  how  both  were  suffering  because  of  the  despicable 
vulgarity  of  the  human  race.  She  thought  to  herself  that  if 
she  were  not  living,  everything  would  be  right.  She  imagined, 
indeed  she  was  certain,  that  all  the  truth  he  had  given  her  had 
had  the  sole  purpose  of  whitewashing  a  lie,  by  which  she  was  to 
be  made  to  believe  that  her  existence  was  a  necessity  to  him.  She 
was  convinced  that  the  weight  of  this  lie  was  crushing  the  very 
life  out  of  him.  She  wished  to  free  him  from  it  and  its  conse- 
quences. But  how  she  was  to  do  this  she  did  not  know.  She 
knew  that  if  Daniel  and  Eleanore  could  belong  to  each  other  in  a 
legal,  legitimate  way,  they  would  be  vindicated  in  the  eyes  of  God 
and  man.  But  how  this  was  to  be  brought  about  she  did  not 
know. 

She  sought  and  sought  for  a  way  out.  Her  ideas  were  vague 
but  persistent.  She  felt  that  she  was  running  around  in  a  circle, 
unable  to  do  more  than  stare  at  the  centre  of  the  circle.  Every 
morning  at  five  o'clock  she  would  get  up  and  go  to  church.  She 
prayed  with  a  devotion  and  passion  that  physically  exhausted  her 
heart. 

One  morning  she  knelt  before  the  altar  in  unusually  heart- 
rending despair.  She  thought  she  heard  a  small  voice  crying  out 
to  her  and  telling  her  to  take  her  life. 


272  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

She  swooned;  people  rushed  up  to  her,  and  wet  her  forehead 
with  cold  water.  This  enabled  her  to  get  up  and  go  home.  A 
peculiarly  sorrowful  and  dreamy  expression  lay  on  her  face. 

She  wanted  to  do  some  knitting,  for  she  recalled  that  when  she 
was  a  girl  she  was  always  able  to  dispel  care  and  grief  by  knitting. 
But  every  stitch  she  made  turned  into  the  cry:  "You  must  take 
your  life." 

She  knelt  down  by  the  cradle  of  little  Agnes,  but  the  child 
said  to  her  only  too  distinctly:  "Mother,  you  must  take  your 
life." 

Eleanore  came  in.  On  her  brow  was  the  light  of  enjoyed 
happiness;  her  whole  body  was  happiness;  her  lips  trembled  and 
twitched  with  happiness.  But  her  eyes  said.  "Sister,  you  must  take 
your  life." 

Philippina  stood  by  the  kitchen  stove,  and  whispered  to  the 
coals:  "Gertrude,  you  must  take  your  life."  Her  father  came  in, 
got  his  dinner,  expressed  his  thanks  for  it,  and  went  out  murmur- 
ing, "Daughter,  you  must  take  your  life;  believe  me,  it  will  be 
for  the  best." 

If  she  passed  by  the  well,  something  drew  her  to  the  edge;  voices 
called  to  her  from  the  depths.  From  every  beaker  she  put  to  her 
lips  to  drink  shone  forth  her  image  as  if  from  beyond  the  tomb. 
On  Sunday  she  climbed  up  the  Vestner  Tower,  and  let  her  eyes 
roam  over  the  plains  below  as  if  in  the  grief  of  departure.  She 
leaned  forward  out  of  the  little  window  with  a  feeling  of  assuag- 
ing horror.  The  keeper,  seeing  what  she  was  doing,  rushed  up, 
seized  her  arms,  and  made  her  get  back. 

If  the  cock  crew,  it  was  the  crow  of  death;  if  the  clock  ticked, 
it  was  the  tick  of  death;  if  the  wind  blew,  it  was  a  breath  from 
beyond  the  grave.  "You  must  take  your  life" — with  this  thought 
the  air,  the  earth,  the  house,  the  church,  the  morning,  the  evening, 
and  her  dreams  were  full. 

In  April  Eleanore  was  taken  down  with  fever.  Gertrude  watched 
by  her  bedside  night  and  day;  she  sacrificed  herself.  Daniel, 
worried  about  Eleanore,  went  around  in  a  dazed  condition.  When 
he  came  to  her  bed  he  never  noticed  Gertrude.  After  Eleanore 
had  begun  to  recover,  Gertrude  lay  down ;  for  she  was  very  tired. 
But  she  could  not  sleep;  she  got  up  again. 

She  went  into  the  kitchen  in  her  bare  feet,  though  she  did  not 
know  why  she  went.  It  was  the  consuming  restlessness  of  her 
heart  that  drove  her  from  her  bed.  Her  legs  were  heavy  with 


PHILIPPINA  STARTS  A  FIRE  273 

exhaustion,  but  she  did  not  like  to  stay  in  any  one  place  for  any 
length  of  time.  Later  Daniel  came  back  from  the  city,  and 
brought  her  a  silver  buckle  which  he  fastened  to  her  bracelet. 
Then  he  pressed  his  lips  to  her  forehead,  and  said:  "I  thank  you  for 
having  been  so  good  to  Eleanore." 

Gertrude  stood  as  if  rooted  to  the  floor.  Something  seemed 
to  cry  incessantly  within  her;  she  felt  that  a  mortally  wounded  beast 
was  in  her  bosom  wallowing  in  its  blood.  Long  after  Daniel 
had  gone  to  his  room  she  could  still  be  seen  standing  in  the  middle 
of  the  floor.  Wrapped  in  gloomy  meditation,  she  removed  the 
buckle  from  her  bracelet:  she  thought  she  saw  an  ugly  mark  where 
the  metal  had  touched  her  skin.  She  went  into  her  room,  opened 
the  cabinet,  and  hid  the  buckle  under  a  pile  of  linen. 

She  had  only  one  wish:  she  wanted  to  sleep.  But  as  soon  as  she 
would  close  her  eyes  her  heart  would  begin  to  beat  with  doubled, 
trebled  rapidity.  She  had  to  get  up  and  walk  back  and  forth  in 
the  room;  she  was  struggling  for  breath. 

XVIII 

A  few  days  later  she  went  out  during  a  pouring  rain  storm, 
and  wandered  about  aimlessly  through  the  streets.  Every  minute 
she  feared — and  hoped — she  would  fall  over  and  become  uncon- 
scious of  herself  and  the  world  about  her.  She  passed  by  two 
churches,  the  doors  of  which  were  locked.  It  was  growing  dark; 
she  reached  the  apothecary  shop  of  Herr  Pflaum,  and  looked 
in  through  the  glass  door.  Herr  Seelenfromm  was  standing  at  the 
counter,  mixing  some  medicine  in  a  mortar.  She  went  in  and 
asked  him  whether  he  could  not  give  her  a  narcotic.  He  said  he 
could,  and  asked  her  what  it  should  be.  "One  which  makes  you 
sleep  for  a  long,  long  while,"  she  said,  and  smiled  at  him  so  as 
to  make  him  inclined  to  fulfil  her  request.  It  was  the  first  smile 
that  had  adorned  her  grief-stricken  face  for  many  a  day.  Herr 
Seelenfromm  was  just  about  to  suggest  a  remedy  to  her.  He  sat 
down  in  a  vain  position  so  that  he  might  avail  himself  of  the 
opportunity  to  flirt  with  her  a  little.  The  apothecary,  however, 
came  up  just  then,  and  when  he  heard  what  Gertrude  wanted,  he 
cast  a  penetrating  glance  at  her  and  said:  "You  had  better  go  to 
the  doctor,  my  good  woman,  and  have  him  make  you  out  a  prescrip- 
tion. I  have  had  some  rather  disagreeable  experiences  with  cases 
of  this  kind." 


274  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

When  Gertrude  had  finally  dragged  herself  home,  she  found 
Philippina  sitting  by  the  cradle  of  little  Agnes,  rocking  the  child 
back  and  forth  and  humming  a  lullaby.  "Where  is  Eleanore?" 
asked  Gertrude. 

"Where  do  you  think  she  is? "  said  Philippina  contemptuously: 
"She  is  upstairs  with  your  husband." 

Gertrude  heard  Daniel  playing  the  piano.  She  raised  her  head 
to  hear  what  he  was  playing. 

"She  told  me  I  was  to  go  with  her  to  Glaishammer  to  get  a 
washwoman  for  you,"  continued  Philippina. 

"Ah,  what  do  we  want  with  a  washwoman?"  said  Gertrude; 
"we  cannot  afford  one.  It  costs  a  great  deal  of  money,  and  every 
cent  of  money  spent  means  a  drop  9f  blood  from  Daniel's  veins. 
Don't  go  to  Glaishammer!  I  would  rather  do  the  washing  myself!" 

She  knew,  however,  at  that  very  moment  that  she  had  done  her 
last  washing.  There  was  something  so  mournful  about  the  light 
of  the  lamp.  Agnes's  little  face  looked  so  pale  as  it  peeped  out 
from  under  the  covers,  Philippina  cowered  so  witlessly  at  the  floor. 
But  all  this  was  only  for  the  moment;  all  this  she  could  take  with 
her  up  into  a  better  world. 

She  bent  down  over  the  child,  and  kissed  it,  and  kissed  it  with 
hot,  burning  lips.  A  lurk  of  unsoftened  evil  crept  into  Philip- 
pina's  face.  "Listen,  Gertrude,  listen:  you  are  all  Greek  to  me," 
said  Philippina,  "I  don't  understand  you." 

Gertrude  went  over  to  Eleanore's  room,  where  she  stood  for  a 
while  in  the  dark,  trembling  and  thinking.  At  times  she  was 
startled:  she  heard  some  one  walking  about,  and  she  thought  the 
door  would  open.  She  could  scarcely  endure  her  impatience. 
Suddenly  she  remembered  the  attic  and  how  quiet  it  was  up  there; 
there  no  one  could  disturb  her.  She  decided  to  go  up.  On  her 
way  she  went  into  the  kitchen,  and  took  a  thick  cord  from  a 
sugar-loaf. 

As  she  passed  by  Daniel's  room,  she  noticed  that  the  door  was 
half  open.  He  was  still  playing.  Two  candles  were  standing  on 
the  piano;  Eleanore  was  leaning  up  against  the  side  of  the  piano. 
She  had  on  a  pale  blue  dress  that  fell  down  over  her  beautiful 
body  in  peaceful  folds. 

Gertrude  looked  at  the  picture  with  wide-open  eyes.  There  was 
an  inimitable  urging,  a  reaching  aloft,  and  a  painful  sinking-back  in 
the  piece  he  was  playing  and  in  the  way  he  was  playing  it. 
Gertrude  went  on  up  without  making  the  slightest  bit  of  noise.  It 
was  dark,  but  she  found  her  way  by  feeling  along  with  her  hands. 


PHILIPPINA  STARTS  A  FIRE  275 


After  a  half-hour  had  gone  by,  Philippina  began  to  wonder 
where  Gertrude  was.  She  looked  in  the  living  room,  then  in 
Eleanore's  room,  and  then  hastened  up  the  steps  and  peeped 
through  the  open  door  into  Daniel's  room.  Daniel  had  stopped 
playing  and  was  talking  with  Eleanore.  Philippina  turned  back. 
On  the  stairs  she  met  Jordan  just  then  coming  in  from  his  evening 
walk.  She  lighted  a  candle,  and  looked  in  the  kitchen.  Gertrude 
was  nowhere  to  be  found. 

"It  is  raining;  there  is  her  raincoat,  and  here  is  her  umbrella, 
so  she  can't  have  gone  out,"  thought  Philippina  to  herself.  She 
sat  down  on  the  kitchen  table,  and  stared  before  her. 

She  was  filled  with  an  ugly,  bitter  suspicion;  she  scented  a 
tragedy.  In  the  course  of  another  half-hour,  she  got  up,  took  the 
lighted  candle,  and  started  out  on  a  second  search.  Something 
drove  her  all  about  the  house:  she  went  out  into  the  hall,  into  the 
various  rooms,  and  then  back  to  the  kitchen. 

All  of  a  sudden  she  thought  of  the  attic.  It  was  the  expression 
on  Gertrude's  face  the  last  time  she  kissed  Agnes  that  made  her 
think  of  it.  Was  not  the  attic  of  any  house,  and  particularly  the 
one  in  this  house,  the  room  that  had  the  greatest  atraction  for  her, 
and  that  her  light-fearing  fancy  invariably  chose  as  the  most  desir- 
able and  befitting  place  for  her  hidden  actions? 

She  went  up  quickly  and  without  making  the  least  noise.  Hold- 
ing the  lighted  candle  out  before  her,  she  stared  at  a  rafter 
from  which  hung  a  human  figure  dressed  in  woman's  clothes. 
She  wheeled  about,  uttering  a  stifled  gurgle.  A  sort  of  drunken- 
ness came  over  her;  she  was  seized  with  a  terrible  desire  to  dance. 
She  raised  one  leg,  and  sank  her  teeth  deep  into  the  nails  of  her 
right  hand.  In  her  convulsions  she  had  the  feeling  that  some  one 
was  crying  out  to  her  in  a  strong  voice:  "Set  it  on  fire!  Set  it 
on  fire!" 

Near  the  chimney  wall  was  a  pile  of  letters  and  old  newspapers. 
She  fell  on  her  knees,  and  exclaimed:  "Blaze!  Blaze!"  And 
then,  half  with  horror  and  half  with  rejoicing,  she  uttered  a  series 
of  irrational,  incoherent  sounds  that  were  nothing  more  than 
"Hu-hu,  oi-oi,  hu-hu,  oi-oi!" 

The  fire  from  the  papers  flared  up  at  once,  and  she  ran  down 
the  steps  with  a  roar  and  a  bellow  that  are  fearful  to  imagine, 
nerve-racking  to  hear. 

In  a  few  minutes  the  house  was  a  bedlam.     Daniel  ran  up  the 


276  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

steps,  Eleanore  close  behind  him.  The  women  in  the  lower  apart- 
ments came  running  up,  screaming  for  water.  Daniel  and  Eleanore 
turned  back,  and  dragged  a  big  pail  full  of  water  up  the  stairs. 
The  fire  alarm  was  turned  in,  the  men  made  their  way  into  the 
building,  and  with  the  help  of  many  hands  the  flames  were  in  time 
extinguished. 

Jordan  was  the  first  to  see  the  lifeless  Gertrude.  Standing  in 
smoke  and  ashes,  he  sobbed  and  moaned,  and  finally  fell  to  the 
floor  as  if  struck  on  the  head  with  an  axe.  The  men  carried 
Gertrude's  body  out;  her  clothes  were  still  smoking, 

Philippina  had  vanished. 


ELEANORE 


IT  was  all  over. 

The  visit  of  the  doctor  was  over;  and  so  was  that  of  the 
coroner.  The  investigations  of  the  various  boards,  including  that 
of  the  fire  department,  the  cross-examination,  the  taking  of  evi- 
dence, the  coming  to  a  decision — all  this  was  over. 

The  cause  of  the  fire  remained  unexplained;  a  guilty  party 
could  not  be  found.  Philippina  Schimmelweis  had  sworn  that  the 
fire  had  already  started  when  she  reached  the  attic.  It  was  there- 
fore assumed  that  the  suicide  had  knocked  over  a  lighted  candle 
in  her  last  moments. 

The  crowd  of  acquaintances  and  close  friends  had  disappeared; 
this  was  over  too.  Hardened  souls  expressed  their  conventional 
sympathy  to  Kapellmeister  Nothafft.  That  a  man  who  had  carried 
his  head  so  high  had  suddenly  been  obliged  to  lower  it  in  humility 
awakened  a  feeling  of  satisfaction.  The  punished  evil-doer  again 
gained  public  favour.  Women  from  the  better  circles  of  society 
expatiated  at  length  on  the  question  whether  a  relation  which  in 
all  justice  would  have  to  be  designated  as  a  criminal  one  while  the 
poor  woman  was  living  could  be  transformed  into  a  legal  one 
after  the  lapse  of  a  certain  amount  of  time.  With  pimplike 
generosity  and  match-making  indulgence  they  decided  that  it 
could. 

The  funeral  was  also  over.  Gertrude  was  buried  in  St.  John's 
Cemetery  on  a  stormy  day. 

The  preacher  had  preached  a  sermon,  the  mourners  had  stood 
with  their  hands  stuffed  in  their  coat  pockets  and  their  furs,  for 
it  was  cold.  As  the  coffin  was  lowered  into  the  grave,  Jordan 
cried  out:  "Farewell,  Gertrude!  Until  we  meet  again,  my  child!" 

There  was  one  man  who  crowded  right  up  to  the  edge  of  the 
grave:  it  was  Herr  Carovius.  He  looked  over  his  nose  glasses  at 
Jordan  and  Daniel  and  Eleanore.  It  seemed  to  him  that  the 
latter,  with  her  pale  face  and  her  black  dress,  was  more  be.iutiful 
than  the  most  beautiful  Madonna  any  Italian  or  Spaniard  had 
ever  immortalised  on  imperishable  canvas. 

277 


278  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

He  turned  his  frightened  face  to  one  side,  and  came  very  nearly 
falling  over  the  heaped-up  earth  by  the  grave. 

With  regard  to  Daniel's  conduct,  Pflaum,  the  apothecary,  had 
this  to  say:  "I  should  have  expected  more  grief  and  sorrow  from 
him,  and  not  so  much  sullenness." 

"A  hard-hearted  man,  an  exceedingly  hard-hearted  man,"  said 
Herr  Seelenfromm  in  his  grief. 

Daniel  was  severely  criticised  for  his  discourteous  treatment  of 
the  people  from  the  City  Theatre,  every  one  of  w.hom  had  come 
to  the  funeral.  When  several  of  them  shook  hands  with  him, 
he  merely  nodded,  and  blinked  his  eyes  behind  the  round  glasses 
which  he  had  been  wearing  for  some  time. 

Judge  Kleinlein  said:  "He  should  be  very  grateful  for  the 
Christian  burial,  for  despite  the  evidence  that  was  turned  in,  it 
was  not  satisfactorily  proved  that  the  woman  was  in  her  right 
mind." 

Eleanore  looked  into  the  open  grave.  She  thought:  "Guilt  is 
being  heaped  upon  guilt,  deep,  serious  guilt." 

All  this  was  over  now.  Daniel  and  Eleanore  and  Jordan  had 
come  back  to  the  house. 


They  felt  lonely  and  deserted.  Jordan  shut  himself  up  in  his 
room.  It  was  rare  now  that  he  took  his  accustomed  evening  walks; 
his  coat-sleeves  and  the  ends  of  his  trouser  legs  had  become  more 
and  more  frayed.  He  pined  away;  his  hair  became  snow  white, 
his  walk  unsteady,  his  eye  dim.  But  he  was  never  ill,  and  he 
never  complained  of  his  fate.  He  never  said  anything  at  the 
table;  he  was  a  quiet  man. 

Eleanore  moved  back  up  with  her  father,  and  Daniel  took  his 
old  room  next  to  the  dining  room.  There  was  all  of  a  sudden  so 
much  space;  he  was  surprised  that  the  going  of  a  single  person 
could  make  such  a  vast  difference. 

Eleanore  spent  the  whole  day  with  little  Agnes  until  Philippina 
came  and  relieved  her.  She  also  did  her  work  close  to  Agnes. 

When  she  had  finished  her  writing,  she  had  to  look  after  the 
house.  She  could  not  cook,  and  had  no  desire  to  learn  how,  so  she 
had  a  woman  come  in  three  times  a  week  who  prepared  the  mid- 
day meals.  Twice  a  week  she  would  prepare  meals  for  two  days, 
and  once  a  week  she  would  get  them  ready  for  three  days.  She 
was  a  modest  woman  who  worked  for  very  little  money.  The 


ELEANORE  279 

food  she  cooked  merely  needed  to  be  heated  over,  and  in  the 
evening  they  always  had  sausage  and  sandwiches  anyhow. 

It  was  a  practical  arrangement,  but  no  one  praised  Eleanore 
for  it. 

At  first  she  spent  her  nights  in  Gertrude's  room  with  the  child; 
she  could  not  stand  this,  however,  longer  than  three  weeks.  Either 
she  could  not  sleep,  or  she  had  such  terrible  dreams. 

Then  she  took  to  carrying  the  child  up  to  her  room  with  her 
and  making  a  little  bed  for  it  on  the  sofa.  But  the  child  did 
not  sleep  so  well  there;  Eleanore  noticed  that,  as  a  result  of  all 
the  excitement  and  hard  work,  she  was  losing  strength. 

Often  in  the  night  when  she  would  take  the  child  to  quiet  it — 
and  become  so  tired  and  uneasy — she  would  make  up  her  mind  to 
have  a  talk  with  Daniel.  But  the  next  morning  she  would  find  it 
impossible  to  bring  up  the  subject.  She  felt  that  the  voice  of 
Gertrude  was  admonishing  her  from  beyond  the  grave  and  telling 
her  to  be  patient. 

She  felt,  too,  that  the  time  was  drawing  near  when  she  would 
succumb  to  over-exertion;  it  made  her  anxious.  Just  then  Philip- 
pina  came  in  to  help. 

in 

When  Jason  Philip  heard  that  Philippina  was  going  to  Jordan's 
daughters  every  day,  he  told  her  most  emphatically  and  repeatedly 
that  she  had  to  quit  it.  Philippina  paid  not  the  slightest  attention 
to  him  and  did  as  she  pleased. 

"I'll  kill  you,"  cried  Jason  Philip  at  the  girl. 

Philippina  shrugged  her  shoulders  and  laughed  impudently. 

Jason  Philip  saw  that  a  grown  person  was  standing  before  him; 
he  was  afraid  of  the  evil  look  of  his  daughter. 

It  was  long  before  he  could  make  out  what  was  taking  her  to  his 
enemies.  Then  he  learned  that  wherever  she  chanced  to  be,  at 
home,  or  with  acquaintances,  or  with  strangers,  she  was  spreading 
evil  reports  concerning  Daniel  and  his  family.  This  tended  to 
make  him  a  bit  more  indulgent:  he  too  wanted  to  feast  his  ears  on 
scandal  from  that  quarter.  At  times  he  would  enter  into  a  con- 
versation with  Philippina,  and  when  she  told  him  the  latest  news 
he  was  filled  with  fiendish  delight.  "The  day  will  rome  when  I 
will  get  back  at  that  music-maker,  you  see  if  I  don't,"  he  said. 

Theresa  was  still  confined  to  her  bed.  During  his  leisure  hours 
Willibald  had  to  read  to  her,  either  from  the  newspapers  or  from 


280  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

trashy  novels.     When  she  was  alone  she  lay  perfectly  quiet  and 
stared  at  the  ceiling. 

The  time  finally  came  when  Willibald  left  school.  He  went 
to  Fiirth,  where  he  was  employed  as  an  apprentice  by  a  manu- 
facturer. There  was  no  doubt  in  any  one's  mind  but  that  he 
would  become  one  of  those  loyal,  temperate,  industrious  people 
who  are  the  pride  of  their  parents,  and  who  climb  the  social  ladder 
at  the  rate  of  an  annual  increase  in  salary  of  thirty  marks. 

The  one-eyed  Markus  entered  the  paternal  bookshop,  where  he 
soon  familiarised  himself  with  the  novels  of  the  world  from  Dumas 
and  Luise  Muhlbach  to  Ohnet  and  Zola,  and  with  the  popular 
sciences  from  Darwin  to  Mantegazza.  His  brain  was  a  book 
catalogue,  and  his  mouth  an  oracle  of  the  tastes  displayed  at  the  last 
fair.  But  in  reality  he  not  only  did  not  like  the  books,  he  regarded 
all  this  printed  matter  as  a  jolly  fine  deception  practised  on  people 
who  did  not  know  what  to  do  with  their  money.  Zwanziger,  the 
clerk,  had  married  the  widow  of  a  cheese  merchant,  and  was  run- 
ning a  shop  of  his  own  on  the  Regensburg  Chaussee. 

"A  rotten  business,"  said  Jason  Philip  at  the  end  of  each  month. 
"The  trouble  with  me,"  he  invariably  added,  "is  that  I  have  been 
too  much  of  an  idealist.  If  I  had  worked  as  hard  for  myself  as 
I  have  for  other  people,  I  would  be  a  rich  man  to-day." 

He  went  to  the  cafe  and  discussed  politics.  He  had  developed 
into  a  perpetual  grumbler;  he  was  pleased  with  nothing,  neither 
the  government  nor  the  opposition.  To  hear  him  talk  you  would 
have  thought  that  the  opposing  parties  had  been  forced  to  narrow 
their  platforms  down  to  the  differences  between  the  views  of 
Prince  Bismarck  and  Jason  Philip  Schimmelweis.  When  Kaiser 
Wilhelm  I  died,  Jason  Philip  acted  as  though  his  appointment  to 
the  chancellorship  was  imminent.  And  when  in  that  same  mem- 
orable year  Kaiser  Friedrich  succumbed  to  his  sufferings,  Jason 
Philip  resembled  the  pilot  on  whose  isolated  fearlessness  the  rescue 
of  the  storm-tossed  ship  of  state  depends. 

The  born  hero  always  finds  a  sphere  of  activity,  a  forum  from 
which  to  express  his  views.  If  public  life  has  rejected  him,  he 
goes  to  the  cafe,  where  he  is  sure  to  find  a  congenial  element. 

One  day  Theresa  got  up  from  the  bed  where  she  had  spent 
fifteen  unbroken  months,  and  seemed  all  of  a  sudden  completely 
recovered.  The  physician  said  it  was  the  strangest  case  that 
had  ever  come  under  his  observation.  But  Jason  Philip  said:  "It 
is  the  triumph  of  a  good  constitution."  With  that  he  went  to  the 
cafe,  drank  beer,  made  fiery  political  speeches,  and  played  skat. 


ELEANORE  281 

But  Theresa  left  her  bed  not  as  a  woman  forty-six  years  old 
— that  was  her  age — but  as  a  woman  of  seventy.  She  had  only  a 
few  sparsely  distributed  grey  hairs  left  on  her  square  head,  her 
face  was  full  of  wrinkles,  her  eye  was  hard  and  cold.  From  that 
time  on,  however,  she  did  not  seem  to  age.  She  did  not  quarrel 
any  more,  attended  to  her  affairs  in  a  straightforward,  self-assured 
way,  and  observed  her  increasing  impoverishment  with  unexpected 
calm. 

She  lived  on  herring,  potatoes,  and  coffee;  it  was  the  same, diet 
on  which  Philippina  and  Markus  lived,  with  the  one  exception 
that  Markus,  as  the  child  nearest  her  heart,  was  allowed  a  piece 
of  sugar  for  his  coffee.  Jason  Philip  was  also  put  on  a  diet:  he 
never  dared  open  his  mouth  about  it,  either. 

Philippina  stood  it  for  a  while  in  silence;  finally  she  said  to 
her  mother:  "I  can't  stand  this  chicory  brew  forever." 

"Then  you'll  have  to  lap  up  water,  you  will,"  replied  Theresa. 

"No,  I  won't,"  said  Philippina.     "I  am  going  to  hire  out." 

"Well,  hire  out.  Who  cares?  It'll  be  one  mouth  less  to  feed." 
"Your  daughter  is  going  to  hire  out,"  said  Theresa  to  her  husband, 
when  he  came  home  that  evening. 

Jason  Philip  had  been  playing  cards  that  day,  and  had  lost. 
He  was  in  a  terrible  humour:  "She  can  go  plumb  to  the  Devil  so 
far  as  I  am  concerned."  That  was  his  comment. 

The  next  morning  Philippina  sneaked  up  to  the  attic,  and 
drew  out  her  cash  from  the  hole  in  the  chimney:  it  amounted 
to  nine  hundred  and  forty  marks,  mostly  in  gold,  which  she  had 
exchanged  in  the  course  of  years  for  small  coins.  Through  the 
opening  in  the  wall  the  June  sun  fell  upon  her  face,  which,  never 
young  and  bearing  the  stamp  of  extended  crime,  looked  like  that 
of  a  witch. 

She  put  the  money  in  a  woollen  stocking,  rolled  it  up  in  a  knot, 
stuffed  it  down  her  corset  between  her  breasts,  made  the  sign  of 
the  cross,  and  repeated  one  of  her  drivelling  formulas.  Her 
clothes,  ribbons,  and  other  possessions  she  had  already  packed  in  a 
basket.  This  she  carried  down  the  stairs,  and,  without  saying 
good-bye  to  a  soul,  left  the  house. 

Her  brother  Markus  was  standing  with  sprawled  legs  in  the 
sun  before  the  store,  whistling.  He  caught  sight  of  her  with  his 
one  eye,  smiled  contemptuously  at  her,  and  cried:  "Happy 
journey!" 

Philippina  turned  to  him,  and  said:  "You  branded  lout!  You're 
going  to  have  a  lousy  time  of  it,  mark  what  I  tell  you!" 


282  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

In  this  frame  of  mind  and  body  she  came  to  Daniel,  and  said 
to  him:  "I  want  to  work  for  you.  You  don't  need  to  pay  nothing 
if  you  ain't  got  it." 

Daniel  had  been  noticing  for  some  time  that  Eleanore  could 
not  stand  the  exertion  required  of  her  by  the  extra  work. 

"Will  you  mind  the  baby  and  sleep  with  it?"  Daniel  asked. 
Philippina  nodded  and  looked  down. 

"If  you  will  take  care  of  the  child  and  act  right  toward  it  and 
me,  I  shall  be  awfully  grateful  to  you,"  he  said,  breathing  more 
easily. 

Thereupon  Philippina  threw  her  hands  to  her  face,  and  shud- 
dered from  head  to  foot.  She  was  not  exactly  crying;  there  was 
something  much  worse,  much  more  despairing,  in  what  she  was 
doing  than  in  mere  crying.  She  seemed  to  be  convulsed  by  some 
demoniac  power;  a  ghastly  dream  seemed  to  have  seized  her  in  a 
moment  of  higher  consciousness.  She  turned  around  and  trotted 
into  the  room  where  the  child  was  playing  with  a  wooden  horse. 

She  sat  down  on  a  foot-stool,  and  stared  at  the  restless  little 
creature. 

Daniel  stopped,  stood  perfectly  still,  and  looked  at  her  in  a 
mood  of  solicitous  reflection. 


IV 

During  a  rehearsal  of  "Traviata,"  Daniel  flew  into  a  rage  at 
Fraulein  Varini:  "Listen,  pay  attention  to  your  intonation,  and 
keep  in  time.  It's  enough  to  make  a  man  lose  his  mind!  What 
are  you  squeaking  up  at  the  gallery  for?  You're  supposed  to  be 
singing  a  song,  and  not  whining  for  a  little  bit  of  cheap  applause." 

The  lady  stepped  out  to  the  foot-lights  with  heaving  bosom. 
Her  offended  dignity  created  something  like  the  spread  tail  of  a 
peacock  about  her  hips:  "How  dare  you?"  she  exclaimed:  "I  give 
you  your  choice:  You  can  apologise  or  leave  this  place.  Whatever 
you  do,  you  are  going  to  become  acquainted  with  the  power  I 
have." 

Daniel  folded  his  arms,  let  his  eyes  roam  over  the  members  of 
the  orchestra,  and  said:  "Good-bye,  gentlemen.  Since  it  is  the 
director's  place  to  choose  between  me  and  this  lady,  there  is  no 
doubt  whatever  but  that  my  term  of  usefulness  in  this  position 
is  up.  And  moreover,  in  an  institution  where  meat  is  more  valuable 
than  music,  I  feel  that  I  am  quite  superfluous." 

The  other  singers  had  come  running  out  from  the  wings,  and 


ELEANORE  283 

were  standing  crowded  together  on  the  stage  looking  down  at  the 
orchestra.  When  Daniel  laid  down  his  baton  and  walked  away, 
every  member  of  the  orchestra  rose  as  one  man  to  his  feet.  It 
was  a  voluntary  and  almost  overwhelming  expression  of  speechless 
admiration.  Though  they  had  never  loved  this  man,  though  they 
had  regarded  him  as  an  evil,  alien  kill-joy,  who  interfered  with 
their  easy-going  habits  as  musicians  in  that  town,  they  nevertheless 
respected  his  energy,  admired  the  nobility  of  his  intentions,  and  at 
least  had  a  vague  idea  of  his  genius. 

Fraulein  Varini  went  into  hysterics.  The  director  was  called 
in.  He  promised  Fraulein  Varini  immediate  redress,  and  wrote 
a  letter  to  Daniel  requesting  that  he  offer  an  apology. 

Daniel  replied  in  a  brief  note  that  he  had  no  thought  of  chang- 
ing his  plans  as  announced  when  he  left  the  building.  He 
remarked  that  it  was  quite  impossible  for  him  to  get  along  with 
Fraulein  Varini,  that  either  he  or  she  would  have  to  quit,  and  that 
since  she  intended  to  remain  he  must  consider  his  resignation  as 
submitted  and  accepted. 

That  evening,  as  he  was  sitting  at  the  table  with  Eleanore,  he 
told  her,  after  a  long  silence  and  in  very  few  words,  what  had 
happened.  Her  response  to  him  was  a  look  of  astonishment;  that 
was  all. 

"Oh,  it  was  the  only  thing  I  could  do,"  said  Daniel,  without 
looking  up  from  his  plate;  "I  was  so  heartily  sick  of  the  whole 
business." 

"What  are  you  going  to  live  on,  you  and  your  child?"  asked 
Eleanore. 

His  eye  became  even  darker  and  harsher:  "You  know,  God  who 
makes  the  lilies  grow  in  the  fields  ...  I  can't  quote  that  old 
proverb  exactly,  my  familiarity  with  the  Bible  is  nothing  to 
boast  of." 

That  was  all  they  said.  The  window  was  open;  there  was  a 
mysterious  pulsing  in  the  earth;  the  warm  air  had  a  disagreeable 
taste,  somewhat  like  that  of  sweet  oil. 

When  the  clock  in  the  tower  struck  ten,  Eleanore  got  up  and 
said  good-night. 

"Good-night!"  replied  Daniel,  with  bowed  head. 


That  is  the  way  it  was  now  every  evening  between   the  two; 
for  during  the  day  they  scarcely  saw  each  other. 


284  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

Daniel  would  sit  perfectly  still  for  hours  at  a  time  and  brood. 

He  could  not  forget.  He  could  not  forget  the  burning,  smok- 
ing border  of  the  dress;  nor  the  shoes  that  had  some  street  mud  on 
them;  nor  the  face  with  the  pinched  upper  lip,  the  dishevelled 
hair,  the  nervously  knitted  brow. 

Under  the  linen  in  the  clothes  press  he  had  found  the  silver 
buckle  he  had  given  her.  "Why  did  she  hide  it  there?"  he  asked 
himself.  The  condition  of  her  soul  when  she  opened  the  press 
and  put  the  buckle  in  it  became  vivid,  real;  it  became  blended 
with  his  own  soul,  a  part  of  his  own  being. 

Then  he  discovered  the  harp  without  the  strings.  He  took  it 
to  his  room;  and  when  he  looked  at  it,  he  had  the  feeling  that  he 
was  looking  at  a  face  without  flesh. 

"Am  I  too  melancholy,  too  heavy  for  you?"  This  was  the 
question  that  came  to  him  from  the  irrevocable  past.  And  that 
other  statement:  "I  will  be  your  mother  made  young  again." 
And  that  other  one,  too:  "I,  too,  am  a  living  creature." 

He  recalled  some  old  letters  she  had  written  him  and  which  he 
had  carefully  preserved.  He  read  them  over  with  the  care  and 
caution  he  would  have  exercised  in  studying  an  agreement,  the 
disregard  or  fulfilment  of  which  was  a  matter  of  life  and  death. 
And  there  were  bits  of  old  embroidery  from  her  girlhood  which 
he  acquired  in  order  to  lock  them  up  and  keep  them  as  if  they 
were  sacred  relics. 

She  stood  out  in  his  mind  and  his  soul  more  vividly  with  each 
passing  hour.  If  he  remembered  how  she  sat  and  listened  when 
he  played  or  discussed  his  works,  he  felt  something  clutching  at 
his  throat.  He  recalled  how  she  crept  up  to  him  once  and 
pressed  her  forehead  against  his  lips:  this  picture  was  enshrouded 
in  the  awe  of  an  unfathomable  mystery. 

It  was  not  a  sense  of  guilt  that  bound  him  to  his  deceased  wife. 
Nor  was  it  contrition  or  self-reproach  or  the  longing  that  finds 
expression  in  the  realisation  of  accumulated  neglect.  His  fancy 
warded  off  all  thought  of  death;  in  its  creative  defiance  it  invested 
the  dead  woman  with  a  reality  she  never  possessed  while  making 
her  pilgrimage  in  bodily  form  over  this  earth. 

It  was  not  until  now  that  she  really  took  on  form  and  shape 
for  Daniel.  And  this  is  the  marvellous  and  the  criminal  feature 
of  the  musician.  Things  and  people  are  not  his  while  they  are 
his.  He  lives  with  shadows;  it  is  only  what  he  has  lost  that  is 
his  in  living  form.  Dissociated  from  the  moment,  he  reaches  out 
for  the  moment  that  is  gone;  he  longs  for  yesterday  and  storms 


ELEANORE  285 

to-morrow  with  unassimilative  impatience.  What  he  has  in  his 
hands  is  withered;  what  lies  behind  him  is  in  flower.  His  thinking 
is  a  winter  between  two  springs:  the  true  one  that  is  gone,  and  the 
one  that  is  to  come  of  which  he  dreams,  but  when  it  arrives  he 
fails  to  take  it  to  himself.  He  does  not  see;  he  has  seen.  He 
does  not  love;  he  has  loved.  He  is  not  happy;  he  was  happy. 
Dead,  lifeless  eyes  open  in  the  grave;  and  the  living  eyes  that  look 
into  the  grave,  see  all  things,  understand  all  things,  and  glorify 
all  things,  feel  as  if  they  are  being  deceived  by  death  and  its 
duration  throughout  eternity. 

Gertrude  was  transformed  into  a  melody;  everything  she  had 
done  or  said  was  a  melody.  Her  silence  was  awakened,  her  mute 
hours  were  made  eloquent.  Once  he  had  seen  her  and  Eleanore, 
the  one  in  a  brown  dress,  the  other  in  a  blue,  minor  and  major, 
the  two  poles  of  his  universe.  Now  the  major  arose  like  the  night, 
spread  out  over  the  lonely  earth,  and  enveloped  all  things  in 
mourning.  Grief  fed  on  pictures  that  had  once  been  daily,  com- 
monplace occurrences,  but  which  were  illumined  at  present  by  the 
brightness  of  visions. 

He  saw  her  as  she  lay  in  bed  with  the  two  braids  of  hair  on 
either  side  of  her  face,  her  face  itself  looking  like  a  wax  figure 
in  an  old  black  frame.  He  could  see  her  as  she  carried  a  dish  into 
the  room,  threaded  a  needle,  put  a  glass  to  her  lips  to  drink,  or 
laced  up  her  shoe.  He  could  see  the  expression  in  her  eye  when 
she  cautioned,  besought,  was  amazed,  or  smiled.  How  incom- 
parably star-like  this  eye  had  all  of  a  sudden  become!  It  was 
always  lifted  up,  always  bright  with  inner  meaning,  always  fixed 
on  him.  In  the  vision  of  this  eye  he  found  one  evening  along 
toward  sunset  the  motif  of  a  sonata  in  B  minor.  A  gesture  he 
remembered — it  was  the  time  Eleanore  stood  before  the  mirror 
with  the  myrtle  wreath  on  her  head — gave  the  impulse  to  the 
stirring  -presto  in  the  first  movement  of  a  quartette.  The  twenty- 
second  Psalm,  beginning  "My  God,  my  God,  why  hast  thou 
forsaken  me?"  he  sketched  on  awakening  from  a  dream  in  which 
Gertrude  had  appeared  before  him  in  perfect  repose,  as  pale  as 
death,  her  chin  resting  on  her  hand. 

But  it  could  not  be  said  that  he  worked.  The  music  he  wrote 
under  these  conditions  simply  gushed  forth,  so  to  speak,  during 
fits  of  fever.  When  the  mood  came  over  him,  he  would  scribble 
the  notes  on  whatever  lay  nearest  him;  his  haste  seemed  to  betray 
a  sense  of  guilt.  He  stole  from  himself;  tones  appealed  to  him 
as  so  many  crimes.  When  the  gripping  melody  of  the  twenty- 


286  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

second  Psalm  arose  in  his  mind,  he  trembled  from  head  to  foot, 
and  left  the  house  as  if  lashed  by  Furies,  though  it  was  in  the 
dead  of  night.  The  recurring  bass  figure  of  the  -presto  sounded 
to  him  as  though  it  were  a  gruesome,  awed  voice  stammering  out 
the  fatal  words:  "Man,  hold  your  breath,  Man,  hold  your  breath!" 
And  he  did  hold  his  breath,  full  of  unresting  discomfort,  while 
his  inspiration  hacked  its  way  through  the  ice-locked  region  into 
which  a  passionate  spell  that  was  becoming  more  and  more  a  part 
of  his  nature  had  driven  it. 

He  saw  humanity  forsaking  him;  he  watched  the  waves  of  isola- 
tion widening  and  deepening  around  him.  Since  he  felt  that  time 
did  not  challenge  him  to  effort  of  any  kind,  he  took  to  despising 
time.  It  came  to  the  point  where  he  regarded  his  creations  as 
something  that  never  were  intended  for  the  world;  he  never  spoke 
about  them  or  cherished  the  remotest  desire  that  men  hear  of 
them.  The  more  completely  he  kept  them  in  secret  hiding,  the 
more  real  they  appeared  to  him.  The  thought  that  a  man  could 
write  a  piece  of  music  and  sell  it  for  money  appealed  to  him  as 
on  a  par  with  the  thought  of  disposing  for  so  much  cash  of  his 
mother  or  his  sweetheart,  of  his  child  or  one  of  his  own  limbs. 

He  came  on  this  account  to  cherish  a  feeling  of  superb  disgust 
for  shrewd  dealers  who  were  carried  along  on  the  wings  of  fashion. 
He  took  a  dislike  to  anything  that  was  famous;  for  fame  smelled 
of  and  tasted  to  him  like  money.  He  shuddered  at  the  mere 
thought  of  the  chaos  that  arises  from  opinions  and  judgments; 
the  disputes  as  to  the  merits  of  different  schools  and  tendencies 
made  him  ill;  he  could  not  stand  the  perambulating  virtuosos  of 
all  zones  and  nations,  the  feathers  they  manage  to  make  fly,  the 
noise  they  evoke,  the  truths  they  proclaim,  the  lies  they  wade 
about  in  and  make  a  splash.  He  stood  aghast  at  the  mention  of  a 
concert  hall  or  a  theatre;  he  flew  into  a  reasoned  rage  when  he 
heard  a  neighbour  playing  a  piano;  he  despised  the  false  devotion 
of  the  masses,  and  scorned  their  impotent,  imbecile  transports. 

All  their  music  smelled  of  and  tasted  to  him  like  money. 

He  had  bought  the  biographies  of  the  great  masters.  From 
them  he  familiarised  himself  with  their  distress  and  poverty;  he 
read  of  the  petty  attitudes  and  fatuous  mediocrity  that  stood  deaf 
and  dumb  in  the  presence  of  immortal  genius.  But  one  day  he 
chanced  to  read  that  Mozart's  body  had  been  buried  in  a  pauper's 
grave.  He  hurled  the  book  from  him  with  an  oath  that  he  would 
never  again  touch  a  work  of  that  sort.  The  mordant  smoke  of 
misanthropy  blew  into  the  fire  of  idolisation;  he  did  not  wish  to 


ELEANORE  287 

see  any  one;  he  left  the  city,  and  found  peace  only  after  he  had 
reached  a  lonely,  unfrequented  place  in  the  forest,  where  he  felt 
he  was  out  of  the  reach  of  human  feet  and  safe  from  the  eyes 
of  men. 

At  night  he  would  walk  "rapidly  through  the  streets;  his  head 
was  always  bowed.  If  he  became  tired,  he  betook  himself  to  some 
unknown  cafe  where  he  was  sure  he  would  not  meet  any  of  his 
acquaintances.  If  some  one  whom  he  knew  met  him  on  the  street, 
he  did  not  speak;  if  any  one  spoke  to  him,  he  was  blatant  and 
bizarre  in  his  replies,  and  hastened  off  as  rapidly  as  he  could,  with 
some  caustic  bit  of  intended  wit  on  his  loosened  tongue. 

To  enter  the  room  where  Philippina  and  the  child  were  required 
much  effort;  at  first  he  was  able  to  do  it  only  with  pronounced 
aversion.  Later  he  came  somehow  to  be  touched  by  the  form  and 
actions  of  the  child:  he  would  come  in  a  few  times  each  day  for 
a  minute  or  two  only,  take  it  up  in  his  arms,  have  it  poke  its  tiny 
hands  into  his  face  or  even  jerk  at  his  nose  glasses;  he  listened 
with  undivided  interest  to  its  baby  talk.  Philippina  would  stand 
in  the  corner  in  the  meanwhile,  with  her  eyes  on  the  floor  and  her 
mouth  closed.  He  became  painfully  aware  of  his  obligations  to 
her  because  of  her  inexplicable  fidelity  to  him,  and  knew  that  he 
would  never  be  able  to  reward  her  for  her  unique  and  faithful 
assistance.  He  was  grieved  at  the  same  time  to  see  the  child  so 
motherless,  so  utterly  without  the  attention  that  ennobles.  The 
child's  bright  eyes,  its  outstretched  arms  hurt  him:  he  feared  the 
feelings  slumbering  even  then  in  its  breast,  and  was  driven  away 
by  the  thought  of  what  might  happen  in  the  future. 

One  morning  in  August  he  arose  with  the  sun,  went  to  the 
kitchen  and  got  his  own  breakfast,  took  his  walking  stick,  and  left 
the  house.  He  wanted  to  go  to  Eschenbach  on  foot. 

He  walked  the  entire  day,  making  only  very  short  stops  for  rest. 
At  noon  .the  heat  became  intense;  he  asked  a  peasant,  who  chanced 
to  drive  up  in  his  hay  wagon,  if  he  might  ride  a  little.  He  had 
no  definite  end  in  view,  no  plan.  Something  drew  him  on;  what 
it  was  he  did  not  know. 

When  he  finally  reached  the  little  town  it  was  late  at  night; 
the  moon  was  shining.  There  was  not  a  soul  on  the  street.  The 
windows  of  his  mother's  house  were  all  dark.  He  climbed  up 
the  steps,  and  sat  down  as  close  to  the  front  door  as  was  physically 
possible.  He  imagined  he  could  hear  his  mother  and  the  child 
she  had  in  her  care  breathing. 

It  seemed  so  strange   to  him   that  his  mother  knew  nothing  of 


288  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

his  presence.  If  she  had  known  he  was  there,  she  would  have 
unlocked  the  door  and  looked  at  him  in  astonishment.  And  if 
he  had  not  felt  like  talking,  he  would  have  been  obliged  to  lay 
his  head  in  her  lap  and  weep.  Nothing  else  was  possible;  he  could 
not  speak.  And  yet  the  fear  lest  he  talk,  lest  he  be  forced  to  tell 
everything,  took  such  firm  hold  on  him  that  he  decided  to  start 
back  home  without  letting  his  mother  know  that  he  had  been 
there  and  without  having  seen  either  her  or  the  child.  The  pecu- 
liar restlessness  that  had  driven  him  away  from  his  home  and 
impelled  him  to  go  on  this  unusual  journey  was  silenced  as  soon 
as  he  sat  in  the  shadow  of  his  mother's  little  house. 

But  he  was  so  tired  that  he  soon  fell  asleep.  He  dreamed  that 
the  child  and  the  old  lady  were  standing  before  him,  that  the 
former  had  a  great  bunch  of  grapes  in  her  hand  and  the  latter 
a  shovel  and  was  shovelling  up  the  earth,  her  face  revealing  a  soul 
of  sorrows.  Eva  seemed  to  him  to  be  much  more  beautiful  than 
she  had  been  a  year  ago;  he  felt  drawn  to  the  child  by  an  uncon- 
trollable power  and  a  painful  love  that  stood  in  a  most  unusual 
relation  to  what  his  mother  was  doing.  The  longer  his  mother 
shovelled  in  the  earth  the  heavier  his  heart  became,  but  he  could 
not  say  anything;  he  felt  as  if  a  glorious  song  were  pouring  forth 
from  his  soul,  a  song  such  as  he  had  never  heard  in  his  life. 
Enraptured  by  its  beauty,  he  woke  up.  At  first  he  thought  he 
could  still  hear  it,  but  it  was  only  the  splashing  of  the  water  in  the 
Wolfram  fountain. 

The  moon  was  high  in  the  heavens.  Daniel  went  over  to  the 
fountain  just  as  the  night  watchman  came  along,  blew  his  trumpet 
and  sang:  "Listen,  all  men,  I  wish  to  tell  that  it  has  struck  two 
from  the  town-hall  bell."  The  watchman  noticed  the  lonely  man 
standing  by  the  fountain,  was  startled  at  first,  but  then  continued 
on  his  rounds,  repeating  from  time  to  time  the  words  of  his  official 
song. 

Often  as  a  child  Daniel  had  read  the  inscription  on  the  base 
of  the  Wolfram  figure.  Now  he  read  the  words,  irradiated  by  the 
light  of  the  moon,  and  they  had  a  totally  different  meaning: 

Water  gives  to  the  trees  their  life, 
And  makes  with   fertile  vigour  rife 
All  creatures  of  the  world. 
By  water  all  our  eyes  are  purled; 
It  washes  clean  man's  very  soul 
And  makes  it  like  an  angel,  whole. 


ELEANORE  289 

Simple  words,  but  Daniel  read  them  in  the  light  of  a  full  experi- 
ence, dipped  his  hands  in  the  basin,  and  rubbed  them  over  his 
eyes  drunk  with  sleep;  then  casting  one  more  glance  at  his  mother's 
house,  he  turned  in  the  direction  of  the  road  leading  away  from 
the  town. 

Out  in  the  fields  it  was  too  damp  for  him  to  lie  down  to  rest. 
Near  an  isolated  farm  house  he  found  a  hay  rick,  wert  up  to  it, 
aod  lay  down. 

VI 

Every  time  Eleanore  looked  at  Daniel  her  heart  was  filled  with 
the  same  anxiety.  She  did  not  understand  him;  she  could  not 
comprehend  a  single  one  of  his  movements.  Such  joy  as  she  had 
arose  from  meditation  on  the  past. 

He  did  not  seem  to  be  able  to  recall  her.  One  word,  any  word, 
from  him  would  have  relieved  her  of  her  anguish;  but  he  spoke  to 
her  precisely  as  he  spoke  to  Philippina  or  to  Frau  Kiitt,  the  woman 
who  came  in  to  do  the  housework. 

It  was  bad  enough  to  live  with  Philippina,  to  feel  the  incessant 
hatred  of  this  secretive  person;  to  suspect  that  she  knew  things  that 
would  not  stand  the  light  of  day.  But  to  see  the  child  handed 
over  to  her,  treated  by  her  as  though  it  were  her  own  and  guarded 
by  her  with  a  jealousy  that  made  her  face  wrinkle  with  rage  if 
Eleanore  presumed  to  stay  with  it  for  as  much  as  five  minutes,  this 
was  infinitely  worse. 

It  was  bad  enough  to  have  to  accept  with  filial  obedience  the 
society  of  the  speechless  old  father  who  spent  his  days  and  nights 
in  his  own  mysterious  way,  striving  without  peace  of  any  kind  to 
reach  an  unknown  goal.  This  made  it  hard  for  Eleanore.  It  was 
spooky  in  the  rooms  upstairs,  and  equally  spooky  in  the  ones  down- 
stairs. Eleanore  dreaded  the  coming  winter.  At  times  she  felt 
that  her  own  voice  had  an  unreal  sound,  and  that  her  most  com- 
monplace remark  echoed  with  the  gloom  of  unhappy  premonitions. 

She  sought  refuge  in  the  old  pictures  of  her  longings — southern 
landscapes  with  groves  and  statues  and  a  sea  of  supernatural  blue. 
But  she  was  too  mature  to  find  enduring  satisfaction  in  empty 
dreams;  she  preferred,  and  felt  it  were  better,  to  forget  her  grief 
in  the  distractions  of  hard  work.  It  was  not  until  the  pen  fell 
from  her  hand,  weighed  down  with  distress  at  the  thought  of  so 
many  unadorned  and  unrelieved  hours,  that  something  drew  her 
back  into  the  realm  of  soirits  and  visions.  And  then  it  was  that 


ago  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

*he  sought  support,  that  she  endeavoured  to  get  a  footing,  in  the 
world  of  actual  objects  round  about  her. 

She  would  take  a  pear,  and  think  herself,  so  to  speak,  into  the 
very  heart  of  this  bit  of  fruit,  just  as  if  it  were  possible  to  find 
protection,  shelter  in  so  small  a  space.  Or  she  would  take  a  piece 
of  coloured  glass,  hold  it  in  her  hand,  and  look  at  the  world  of 
reality  about  her,  hoping  that  the  commonplace  would  in  this 
way  be  made  to  seem  more  beautiful.  Or  she  looked  into  the 
burning  fire,  and  studied,  with  a  smile  on  her  face,  the  romantic 
tongues  of  flames.  Or  she  had  a  longing  to  look  at  old  pictures:  she 
went  to  the  Germanic  Museum,  and  spent  an  entire  morning  there, 
standing  before  a  Crucifixion,  a  Last  Supper,  her  eye  and  her  heart 
filled  with  flowing  emotion. 

Her  love  for  flowers  became  stronger  than  ever,  and  she  began 
to  study  them.  The  most  of  them  she  picked  herself;  those  that 
grew  only  in  gardens  she  bought  from  the  florists,  paying  very 
little  for  them.  After  she  had  made  several  purchases,  they  refused 
to  take  any  more  money  from  her;  they  gave  her  just  as  many 
flowers  as  she  wanted.  She  took  them  home,  and  made  bouquets 
out  of  them. 

One  evening  she  was  frightened  by  Philippina,  who  came  rush- 
ing up  to  her  just  as  she  was  arranging  her  flowers  and  told  her 
that  little  Agnes  had  a  high  fever.  Eleanore  went  out  and  got 
the  doctor,  who  immediately  reassured  her.  As  she  returned,  her 
astonishment  was  intense  and  unusual.  Reaching  the  door,  her  eyes 
fell  on  the  flowers:  they  seemed  wonderfully  beautiful  to  her;  the 
harmony  and  play  of  their  colours  was  so  striking  that  she  involun- 
tarily looked  around  in  the  illusion  that  a  stranger  had  called 
during  her  absence,  brought  the  flowers,  and  arranged  them  in 
their  artistic  bouquets. 

In  the  meantime  poverty  was  haunting  the  house  in  very  tangible 
form.  Neither  the  butcher  nor  the  baker  was  willing  any 
longer  to  deliver  goods  on  credit.  It  was  quite  impossible  for 
Eleanore  to  support  five  people  with  her  clerical  work,  to  say 
nothing  of  keeping  them  in  clothes  and  paying  the  rent.  However 
hard  she  might  work,  the  most  she  could  do  was  to  get  enough 
money  for  the  barest  necessities.  Her  cares  multiplied  day  by  day. 

She  had  always  been  an  implacable  foe  of  debts;  she  would  not 
make  them.  But  after  all,  the  people  could  not  starve,  and  so 
she  had  to  contract  debts  now.  Bitter  humiliations  were  unavoid- 
able; she  looked  into  the  future  with  untempered  dread.  She 
racked  her  brain  trying  to  devise  plans,  deplored  her  weakness 


ELEANORE  291 

and  the  gaps  in  her  training,  bemoaned  the  neglect  both  she  and 
Daniel  were  suffering,  and  was  quite  disturbed  to  see  that  Philip- 
pina's  heart  was  filled  with  joy  at  the  thought  that  the  destitution 
of  the  household  with  its  accompanying  mental  anguish  was  rapidly 
increasing. 

Twice  a  day  the  druggist  sent  in  his  bill;  finally  he  came  in 
person.  It  was  along  toward  evening  when  he  rang.  Philippina 
treated  him  so  impolitely  that  he  became  impudent,  and  made  such 
a  noise  that  the  people  on  the  lower  floors  came  out  into  the  hall 
and  leaned  over  the  railing  of  the  stairs.  Eleanore  ran  down  and 
stood  before  the  man  with  folded  hands.  Jordan  also  left  his 
room  and  looked  on,  sighing. 

Others  came  in  and  started  trouble.  Philippina  came  up  to 
Eleanore,  and,  with  a  smile  on  her  face  as  if  she  were  going  to  tell 
of  some  great  good  fortune  that  had  come  to  the  family,  said: 
"There's  another  down  there,  Eleanore;  come  down  and  give  him 
a  piece  of  your  mind,  or  I'm  thinking  he's  going  to  call  the  police." 

After  quiet  had  been  restored,  Philippina  began  to  rage  and 
rant:  "Daniel's  a  dunderhead.  He  could  live  like  a  Kaiser  if  he'd 
mix  with  the  right  people.  I  know  a  woman  who  is  lousy  with 
money,  and  she's  going  to  git  a  lot  more;  but  Daniel,  the  poor  bloke, 
ain't  got  a  ghost  of  an  idea  as  to  how  to  work  people."  She 
laughed  furiously;  or,  in  order  to  ventilate  her  spiteful  rage,  she 
picked  up  some  object  and  smashed  it  to  pieces  on  the  floor. 

Eleanore  did  not  hear  what  she  had  said.  Her  hope  was  gone. 
Daniel  had  been  out  of  work  for  three  months:  who  could  explain 
his  strange  inactivity?  The  rent  would  be  due  in  a  short  while, 
and  then  what? 

One  morning  she  went  to  Daniel's  room  and  said:  "Daniel,  we 
are  out  of  money." 

He  was  sitting  at  the  table  reading;  he  looked  at  her  as  if  he 
had  to  think  for  a  while  who  she  was:  "Just  have  patience,"  he 
said,  "you  are  not  going  to  starve." 

"I  am  doing  all  that  I  possibly  can,  Daniel,"  continued  Eleanore; 
"but  tell  me,  please,  how  are  you  planning  to  keep  the  house 
going?  I  see  no  way  out.  Tell  me,  Daniel,  tell  me,  please,  what 
you  are  going  to  do." 

"A  musician  must  be  poor,  Eleanore,"  replied  Daniel,  and  looked 
at  her  with  eyes  that  seemed  to  be  frozen. 

"But  he  has  got  to  live,  I  should  think." 

"You  can't  live  from  husks  alone,  and  I  am  not  going  to  work 
my  head  off  for  husks." 


292  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

"Daniel,  oh  Daniel,  where  is  your  mind?  And  where  is  your 
heart?"  cried  Eleanore  in  despair. 

"Where  I  should  have  been  long  ago,"  he  replied,  without  the 
shadow  of  a  ray  of  hope.  He  got  up,  and  turning  his  face  away 
from  Eleanore,  said  in  a  half-audible  voice:  "Let's  have  no  argu- 
ment, no  cogency,  no  urgency.  Not  now!  Not  now  when  I  am 
creeping  along  on  the  earth  with  such  light  as  is  left  me,  trying  to 
grope  my  way  out  of  the  hole.  A  man  doesn't  give  up  the  ghost  so 
quickly  as  all  that,  Eleanore.  The  stomach  is  a  very  elastic  piece 
of  skin." 

He  went  into  the  other  room,  sat  down  at  the  piano,  and  struck 
a  slow-moving  bass  chord. 

Eleanore  turned  to  the  wall,  and  buried  her  feverish  brow  in 
her  hands. 

VII 

It  was  not  in  Ekanore's  nature  to  submit  to  a  misfortune  with- 
out first  having  made  every  possible  effort  to  evade  it. 

She  wrote  for  from  fourteen  to  sixteen  hours  a  day,  with  the 
result  that  she  had  finished  all  that  was  asked  of  her  long  before 
her  time  was  really  up. 

Then  she  looked  around  for  a  better  paying  position;  it  was  in 
vain.  Women  had  never  been  paid  well,  she  had  no  recommenda- 
tions, no  personal  connections,  nothing  on  which  she  could  depend 
or  to  which  she  might  refer. 

Finally  it  occurred  to  her  that  she  might  make  some  money  out 
of  her  flowers.  She  went  to  the  florist  at  St.  Lorenz  Place,  taking 
with  her  a  garland  of  carnations  and  mignonettes  she  had  made  the 
day  before.  She  told  the  florist  she  knew  a  great  deal  about 
flowers  and  had  had  considerable  experience  in  handling  them. 

The  man  laughed  at  her,  and  told  her  he  could  find  no  sale  for 
that  kind  of  things,  and  that,  even  if  he  could,  he  would  have  to 
ask  so  little  for  them  that  it  would  not  pay  her  to  make  them. 
Eleanore  took  her  flowers  back  home;  she  was  profoundly  discour- 
aged. She  saw  herself  how  perishable  flowers  were;  these  withered 
that  same  evening.  Nothing  could  be  expected  from  that  source. 

She  had  not  noticed  that,  as  she  left  the  florist  shop,  a  man  on 
the  other  side  of  the  street  had  stopped  and  looked  at  her.  He 
was  a  haggard  young  individual  with  a  pale,  peevish  expression  on 
his  face,  a  man  with  a  chin  the  unimpressiveness  of  which  was 
hidden  behind  a  Vandyke  beard. 

He  stood  for  a  long  while  and  looked  at  Eleanore  as  she  walked 


ELEANORE  293 

down  the  street.  There  could  be  no  doubt  but  that  something  in 
her  general  bearing  and  her  face  had  drawn  his  attention  to  her; 
had  awakened  in  him  a  feeling  that  was  nobler  than  mere  curiosity 
or  the  satisfaction  an  idler  derives  from  gaping. 

The  young  man  finally  began  to  move;  he  walked  rather  stiffly 
across  the  square  and  entered  the  florist's  shop.  A  few  minutes 
later  the  florist,  a  man  past  middle  age,  with  the  typical  toper's 
nose,  threw  open  his  door  and  removed  his  cap,  actions  which  in 
addition  to  his  fawning  bow  were  unmistakable  proof  to  the  mer- 
chants on  either  side  of  him  that  it  was  no  ordinary  sale  he  had 
just  made.  The  young  man  went  his  way,  ambling  along  in  shift- 
less indifference  to  where  he  was  or  the  time  of  day. 

The  next  morning  the  florist's  errand  boy  came  to  Eleanore, 
and  told  her  that  his  chief  had  something  very  important  to  say 
to  her,  and  that  she  should  come  at  once.  Eleanore  followed  the 
call  without  delay.  As  she  entered  the  shop,  the  florist  greeted 
her  with  unusual  politeness,  and  told  her  that  a  man  who  took  a 
special  fancy  to  the  kind  of  flowers  she  had  shown  him  the  day 
before  had  been  there  and  placed  an  order  for  two  such  bouquets, 
or  even  three,  a  week  at  twenty  marks  each.  He  advised  her 
to  exercise  all  diligence  in  making  the  flowers  and  said  that  when 
such  a  rain  of  good  fortune  descended  upon  one  it  was  wise  to 
let  other  things  take  care  of  themselves.  The  only  condition  the 
florist  imposed  on  her  was  absolute  silence.  The  customer  did  not 
wish  his  name  to  be  known,  nor  did  he  wish  to  be  seen.  He 
remarked  casually  that  there  was  manifestly  some  whim  or  crotchet 
back  of  the  man's  action,  such  as  is  so  frequently  the  case  with 
aristocratic  people. 

Who  was  happier  than  Eleanore!  She  never  bothered  herself 
for  a  minute  about  the  illogical  and  legendary  element  in  the 
offer  of  a  man  who  only  a  day  before  had  appeared  so  shrewd 
and  cautious.  She  drank  in  every  word  of  the  florist's  detailed 
statement,  and  merely  believed  that  in  this  city,  among  its  in- 
habitants, there  was  an  eccentric  fellow  who  was  willing  to  pay 
such  a  princely  price  for  her  flowers  simply  because  he  liked 
flowers  and  was  pleased  with  the  way  she  put  them  up.  Though 
she  had  not  been  spoiled  by  fortune,  the  transformation  that  had 
suddenly  taken  place  in  her  circumstances  awakened  in  her  not 
the  slightest  suspicion  or  surprise.  She  was  too  happy  to  be  dis- 
trustful, too  grateful  to  become  inquisitive.  Her  thoughts  were 
on  Daniel,  who,  she  felt,  was  saved.  The  whole  way  home  she 
smiled  to  herself  as  if  lost  in  dreams. 


294  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

Evening  after  evening  she  sat  with  the  flowers  she  had  gath- 
ered in  the  forenoon  from  the  forests,  the  meadows,  and  the  gar- 
dens out  by  the  city  fortress,  where  an  old  gardener  went  with 
her  and  picked  out  the  choicest  specimens  for  her.  He  had  a 
crippled  son  who  fell  in  love  with  Eleanore  and  always  stood 
in  the  door  and  smiled  at  her  when  she  came.  He  promised 
he  would  get  her  flowers  from  the  green  house  during  the 
winter. 

The  butcher  was  paid,  the  baker  was  paid;  the  druggist  was 
paid,  and  so  was  the  rent.  Philippina  shook  her  head,  and  swore 
there  was  something  wrong.  She  was  convinced  that  it  would 
all  come  out  some  day,  even  if  you  had  to  scratch  the  dung  hill 
to  get  at  the  secret.  She  told  the  people  about  a  ghost  that  carried 
on  every  night  up  in  the  attic;  and  once  when  the  moon  was 
shining  she  came  running  into  the  room  and  swore  that  a  bony 
finger  had  rapped  on  the  window. 

Eleanore  bound  roses  and  gilliflowers,  tulips  and  pansies,  mosses, 
ferns,  and  what-not  into  beautiful  tapestried  pictures,  or  wound 
them  into  wreaths  and  garlands.  She  gave  herself  up  to  this  novel 
occupation  with  the  sacrificial  love  of  a  woman  of  her  type;  and 
at  times  she  became  dizzy  from  so  much  fragrance.  But  this  mat- 
tered not.  She  arranged  her  flowers;  and  then  she  would  lean  out 
of  the  window,  and  sing  gently  into  the  night. 

Daniel  was  ignorant  of  what  she  was  doing;  he  had  not  troubled 
himself  about  the  distressing  poverty  of  past  weeks;  he  did  not 
concern  himself  now  with  their  abundance;  where  it  came  from 
he  never  asked. 

VIII 

Eberhard  von  Auffenberg  had  returned  to  the  city  shortly  after 
the  death  of  Gertrude  Nothafft.  The  last  large  sum  he  had 
received  from  Herr  Carovius,  now  nearly  a  year  ago,  he  had  almost 
used  up.  He  found  Herr  Carovius  quite  changed  in  his  attitude 
toward  him.  Herr  Carovius  declared  that  he  was  bankrupt,  that  he 
could  not  get  any  more  money  for  him.  Instead  of  complaining 
or  boasting,  or  flattering  his  princely  friend,  or  trying  to  incite 
him  to  activity  of  some  kind,  as  he  had  been  accustomed  to  do,  he 
wrapped  himself  in  a  silence  that  could  not  be  regarded  as  a 
favourable  omen. 

Eberhard  had  no  desire  to  beg.  Herr  Carovius's  personality  was 
so  disagreeable  to  him  that  he  refused  to  investigate  the  cause  of 


ELEANORE  295 

his  novel  behaviour.  He  let  his  thoughts  take  their  own  course; 
and  they  drifted  into  other  channels. 

The  gossip  afloat  concerning  Eleanore  had  naturally  reached  his 
ears.  Herr  Carovius  had  seen  to  it  that  there  was  no  lack  of 
insinuations,  either  written  or  oral.  But  Eberhard  had  ignored 
them.  Offensive  insults  that  had  dared  attach  themselves  to 
Eleanore  seemed  to  him  as  incredible  as  litter  from  the  street  on 
the  radiant  moon. 

One  day  he  had  to  call  on  Herr  Carovius  because  of  a  note  that 
had  been  protested.  They  discussed  the  affair  in  a  dry,  business- 
like way,  and  then,  all  of  a  sudden,  Herr  Carovius  fixed  his  pierc- 
ing eyes  on  the  Baron,  walked  around  the  table  time  after  time, 
dressed  in  his  sleeping  gown,  and  told,  without  the  omission  of  a 
single  detail,  of  the  lamentable  death  of  Daniel  Nothafft's  young 
wife. 

He  became  highly  excited;  why,  it  would  be  hard  to  say.  "Let 
us  hope  that  the  Kapellmeisterette  will  come  to  his  senses  now," 
he  cried  in  a  falsetto  voice.  "He  is  already  on  the  point  of  starv- 
ation; ah,  believe  me,  he  is  nearly  done  for.  It  will  be  necessary 
to  take  up  a  collection  for  the  unrecognised  genius.  He  has  al- 
ready put  one  of  his  women  in  the  grave,  the  other  is  still  kicking. 
By  the  way,  how  do  you  like  her,  the  angel?  Are  you  not  a  bit 
sorry  for  the  neat  little  halo  that  now  hangs  like  a  piece  of  castoff 
clothing  on  the  bedpost  of  an  adulteress?  Of  course,  geniuses  are 
allowed  to  do  as  they  please.  O  Eleanore,  bloody  lie  that  you  are, 
yon  hypocritical  soft,  sneaking,  slimy  lie — Eleanore!" 

With  that  Eberhard  stepped  up  very  calmly  to  the  unleashed 
demon  in  pajamas,  seized  him  by  the  throat,  and  held  him  with  such 
a  fierce  and  unrelenting  grip  that  Herr  Carovius  sank  to  his  knees, 
while  his  face  became  as  blue  as  a  boiled  carp.  After  this  he  was 
remarkably  quiet;  he  crept  away.  At  times  he  tittered  like  a 
simpleton;  at  times  a  venomous  glance  shot  forth  from  under  his 
eyelids.  But  that  was  all. 

Eberhard  poured  some  water  in  a  basin,  dipped  his  hands  in  it, 
dried  them,  and  went  away. 

The  picture  of  the  whining  man  with  the  puffed  and  swollen 
eyes  and  the  blue  face  was  indelibly  stamped  on  Eberhard's  memory. 
He  had  felt  a  greedy,  voluptuous  desire  to  commit  murder.  He 
felt  he  was  not  merely  punishing  and  passing  final  judgment  on 
his  own  tormentor  and  persecutor,  but  on  the  hidden  enemy  of 
humanity,  the  arch-criminal  of  the  age,  the  destroyer  of  all  noble 
seed. 


296  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

And  yet  the  exalted  outburst  of  Herr  Carovius  had  precisely  the 
effect  that  Eberhard  had  least  expected.  His  confidence  in  Elea- 
nore's  innocence  had  been  shaken.  There  may  have  been  in  Herr 
Carovius's  voice,  despite  the  slanderous  wrath  with  which  his  cow- 
ardly tongue  was  coated,  something  that  sounded  truer  than  the 
wretch  himself  suspected.  Eberhard  saw  just  then,  for  the  first 
time  in  his  life,  the  adored  figure  of  the  girl  as  a  human  being 
like  all  other  human  beings;  and  as  if  through  a  distant  vision  he 
experienced  in  his  heart  what  had  taken  place. 

His  illusions  were  destroyed. 

In  his  soul  he  had  gone  through  the  trials  of  renunciation  long 
ago.  His  passionate  wishes  of  former  times  had  gone  through 
a  process  of  weakening  from  loss  of  blood.  He  had  learned  to 
bow  to  the  inevitable;  he  had  made  a  special  effort  to  acquire  this 
bit  of  earthly  wisdom.  When  he  surveyed  the  life  he  had  lived 
in  the  past  five  years,  it  resembled,  despite  its  flux  and  the  in- 
cessant change  from  city  to  city  and  country  to  country,  a  sojourn 
in  a  room  with  closed  doors  and  drawn  shades. 

When  he  had  returned  to  the  city,  which  he  loved  simply 
because  Eleanore  lived  in  it,  he  had  had  no  intention  of  remind- 
ing Eleanore  of  the  expiration  of  the  time  mutually  agreed  upon. 
He  felt  that  it  would  be  a  banal  display  of  poor  taste  to  appear 
before  her  once  again  as  an  awkward,  jilted  suitor,  and  try  to  re- 
connect the  thread  where  it  had  been  so  ruthlessly  broken  five 
years  ago.  He  had  intended  not  to  disturb  her  or  worry  her  in 
any  way.  But  to  go  to  her  and  speak  with  her,  that  had  been  the 
one  bright  ray  of  hope  in  all  these  empty  years. 

After  the  scene  with  Herr  Carovius  he  decided  quite  firmly  to 
keep  away  from  Eleanore. 

His  ready  cash  had  shrunk  to  a  few  hundred  marks.  He  dis- 
charged his  servants,  disposed  of  some  of  his  jewelry,  and  rented 
one  of  those  little  houses  that  are  stuck  on  the  rocks  up  by  the 
castle  like  so  many  wasp  nests.  The  house  he  took  had  been 
occupied  before  him  by  the  Pfragners,  and  with  its  three  rooms 
was  not  much  larger  than  a  fair-sized  cage  in  a  menagerie.  But 
he  had  taken  it  into  his  head  to  live  there,  and  that  was  all  there 
was  to  it.  He  bought  some  old  furniture,  and  adorned  the 
slanting  walls  of  the  dilapidated  barracks  with  such  pictures  as  he 
had. 

One  evening  there  was  a  knock  at  the  green  door  of  the  cot- 
tage. Eberhard  opened,  and  saw  Herr  Carovius  standing  before 
him. 


ELEANORE  297 

Herr  Carovius  entered  the  Baron's  doll  house,  looked  around  in 
astonishment,  and,  pale  as  a  sheet,  said:  "So  help  me  God,  it  seems 
to  me  you  are  trying  to  play  the  role  of  a  hermit.  This  won't 
do;  this  is  no  place  for  a  Baron;  I  will  not  stand  for  it." 

Eberhard  reached  for  the  book  he  had  been  reading,  a  volume 
of  Carl  du  Prel,  and  read  on  without  replying  to  Herr  Carovius 
or  even  taking  notice  of  the  fact  that  he  was  present. 

Herr  Carovius  tripped  from  one  foot  to  the  other.  "Perhaps 
the  Baron  will  be  so  good  as  to  take  a  look  at  his  account,"  he 
said  in  a  beseeching  tone.  "I  am  in  a  tight  place.  My  capital  is 
gone,  and  my  debts  in  the  shape  of  interest  have  been  swelling 
like  the  Pegnitz  in  the  spring  of  the  year.  Would  you  like  to 
know  what  I  have  been  living  on  for  the  last  three  months?  I 
have  been  living  on  turnips,  potato  pealings,  and  brick  cheese;  that 
has  been  my  daily  diet;  and  I  have  submitted  to  it  for  the  sake  of 
my  Baron." 

"I  am  not  a  bit  interested  in  what  you  have  been  eating,"  said 
the  Baron  arrogantly,  and  kept  on  reading. 

Herr  Carovius  continued  with  an  imbecile  sulk:  "When  you  left 
me  recently  because  of  that  little  quarrel  we  had  about  the  Goose 
Man,  it  never  occurred  to  me  that  you  were  going  to  take  the 
matter  so  seriously.  Lovers  like  to  be  teased,  I  thought.  He'll  come 
back,  I  thought,  he'll  come  back  just  as  sure  as  laughter  follows 
tickling.  Well,  I  was  mistaken.  I  thought  you  were  of  a  more 
gentle  disposition,  and  that  you  would  be  more  indulgent  with  an 
old  friend.  Yes,  we  make  mistakes  sometimes." 

Eberhard  remained  silent. 

Herr  Carovius  sighed,  and  sat  down  timidly  on  the  narrow  edge 
of  the  sofa  that  stood  next  to  the  whitewashed  wall.  He  sat  there 
for  almost  an  hour  in  perfect  silence.  Eberhard  appreciated 
neither  the  ridiculous  nor  the  fantastic  element  in  the  conduct  of 
his  guest.  He  read  on. 

And  then,  all  of  a  sudden,  Herr  Carovius  sprang  to  his  feet, 
took  his  wallet  from  his  pocket,  drew  out  a  thousand-mark  note, 
and  laid  it,  together  with  a  blank  receipt,  across  the  page  Eberhard 
was  reading.  Before  the  Baron  could  recover  from  his  amaze- 
ment he  had  already  disappeared,  closing  the  door  behind  him. 
The  sound  of  his  footsteps  on  the  street  could  be  heard  in  the 
room;  but  he  was  gone. 

What  rare  living  creatures  there  are,  O  World,  and  what  rare 
dead  ones,  too!  This  is  the  thought  that  passed  through  Eberf 
hard's  mind. 


298  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

IX 

That  two  men  as  radically  different  by  nature  as  Eberhard  and 
Daniel  chanced  to  meet  and  be  drawn  together  at  the  very  period 
of  their  lives  when  both  had  voluntarily  renounced  human  society 
was  due  to  one  of  those  decrees  of  Providence  that  contain  in 
them  either  a  law  of  crystallisation  or  the  attraction  of  polar 
forces,  however  much  they  may  seem  to  be  matters  of  pure  chance. 

Their  coming  together  took  place  on  the  day  after  Daniel  had 
gone  to  Eschenbach.  At  the  break  of  day,  Daniel  had  decided 
to  return  by  way  of  Schwabach,  both  for  the  sake  of  variety 
and  because  this  was  the  shorter  route.  The  sun  was  hotter 
than  on  the  day  before;  and  when  it  had  reached  the  height  of 
its  ability  to  dry  up  the  land  and  scorch  a  human  being,  Daniel  lay 
down  in  the  forests.  Late  in  the  afternoon,  just  as  he  was  ap- 
proaching Schwabach,  great  black  clouds  began  to  gather  in  the 
West;  a  fearful  storm  was  evidently  to  be  expected.  Heavy  streaks 
of  lightning  flashed  across  the  sky;  and  although  Daniel  tried  to 
hasten  his  steps,  the  storm  overtook  him.  Before  he  could  reach  the 
shelter  of  a  house,  he  was  wet  to  the  skin  from  head  to  foot. 

The  rain  came  down  in  torrents.  He  waited  a  long  while,  and 
then  had  to  start  out  in  it  again,  arriving  finally  at  the  station 
shivering  with  cold.  As  he  went  to  buy  his  ticket  he  noticed  a 
lean,  haggard,  unusual  looking  individual  standing  at  the  ticket 
window.  It  is  quite  probable  that,  vexed  by  his  uncomfortable 
condition,  Daniel  treated  him  none  too  courteously;  he  pushed  up 
against  him,  whereupon  the  man  turned  around,  and  Daniel  recog* 
nised  the  young  Baron,  Eberhard  von  Auffenberg.  Eberhard  in 
turn  recognised  Daniel.  It  is  unlikely  that  there  was  at  that  time 
another  face  in  the  world  which  could  belong  so  completely  to 
just  one  person  as  that  of  Daniel. 

The  Baron  had  been  attracted  to  Schwabach  by  his  affection  for 
a  certain  person  there,  an  affection  he  had  preserved  from  the 
days  of  his  childhood.  There  lived  in  Schwabach  at  the  time  a 
woman  who  had  been  his  nurse.  Her  undivided  and  resigned  love 
for  him  was  touching.  She  was  as  proud  of  him  as  she  might  have 
been  had  she  been  able  to  say  that  in  him  she  had  been  responsible 
for  the  childhood  training  of  the  noblest  specimen  of  manhood 
known  to  human  history.  And  he  was_fond  of  her;  the  stories 
she  told  him  he  could  still  recall,  and  he  did  recall  them  frequently 
and  with  pleasure.  She  had  married  the  foreman  of  a  tin  mill, 
and  had  sons  and  daughters  of  her  own.  Eberhard  had  been  plan- 


ELEANORE  299 

ning  for  years  to  visit  her.  This  visit  had  now  been  paid.  But 
Eberhard  could  not  say  that  he  had  derived  extraordinary  pleasure 
from  it:  it  had  taken  an  inner  figure  from  his  soul.  And,  on  the 
other  hand,  whether  the  nurse  felt,  on  seeing  the  tall,  lank,  stiff, 
and  ill-humoured  foster  son,  that  enraptured  charm  she  so  much 
liked  to  conjure  up  before  her  imagination,  is  a  question  that  had 
better  remain  unanswered. 

When  Eberhard  became  aware  of  the  condition  in  which  Daniel 
then  found  himself,  his  feelings  of  chivalry  were  moved.  With 
the  dauntless  courage  of  which  he  was  capable,  he  subdued  the 
apathy  he  had  cherished  toward  Daniel  ever  since  he  first  came  to 
know  him,  and  to  which  actual  detestation  and  disquieting  jeal- 
ousy had  been  added  a  few  weeks  ago.  "You  have  been  out  in  the 
rain,"  said  Eberhard  courteously,  but  with  a  reserve  that  was  rigid 
if  not  quite  forbidding  or  impenetrable. 

"I  look  like  it,  don't  I?"  said  Daniel  with  a  scowl. 

"You  will  catch  cold  if  you  are  not  careful.  May  I  offer  you 
my  top  coat?"  continued  Eberhard  more  courteously.  He  felt  as 
if  he  could  see  the  figure  of  Eleanore  rising  up  behind  Daniel,  that 
she  was  quite  surrounded  by  flowers,  and  that  she  was  smiling  at 
him  in  joy  and  gratitude.  He  bit  his  lips  and  blushed. 

Daniel  shook  his  head:  "I  am  accustomed  to  all  kinds  of  weather. 
Thank  you." 

"Well,  then,  at  least  wrap  this  around  your  neck;  the  water  is 
running  down  your  back."  Thereupon  Eberhard  reached  him  a 
white  silk  kerchief  he  drew  from  the  pocket  of  his  coat.  Daniel 
make  a  wry  face,  but  took  the  kerchief,  threw  it  about  his  neck, 
and  tied  it  in  a  knot  under  his  chin. 

"You  are  right,"  he  admitted,  and  drew  his  head  down  between 
his  shoulders:  "It  all  reminds  me  of  a  good  warm  bed." 

Eberhard  stared  at  the  locomotive  of  the  in-coming  train* 
"Plebeian,"  he  thought,  with  inner  contempt. 

Nevertheless  he  joined  this  same  plebeian  in  the  third-class  car- 
riage, though  he  had  bought  a  ticket  for  first  class.  Was  it  the 
white  silk  kerchief  that  so  suddenly  attracted  him  to  the  plebeian? 
What  else  could  it  have  been?  For  during  the  entire  journey 
they  sat  opposite  each  other  in  absolute  silence.  It  was  a  remarka- 
ble pair:  the  one  in  a  shabby,  wet  suit  with  a  hat  that  looked 
partly  as  though  it  belonged  to  a  cheap  sign  painter,  and  partly  as 
though  it  were  the  sole  head  gear  of  a  gypsy  bard,  and  with  a 
big  pair  of  spectacles  from  which  the  eyes  flashed  green  and  un- 
steady; the  other  looking  as  though  he  had  just  stepped  out  of  a 


300  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

band-box,  not  a  particle  of  dust  on  his  clothing,  in  patent  leather 
slippers,  English  straw  hat,  and  with  an  American  cigarette  in  his 
mouth. 

Next  to  them  sat  a  peasant  woman  with  a  chicken  basket  on  her 
lap,  a  red-headed  girl  who  held  the  hind  part  of  pig  on  her  knees, 
and  a  workman  whose  face  was  bandaged. 

At  times  they  looked  at  each  other.  If  they  chanced  to  catch 
each  other's  eye,  the  Baron  would  at  once  look  down,  and  Daniel, 
bored  as  he  was,  would  gaze  out  of  the  window  at  the  rain.  But 
there  must  have  been  something  unusually  communicative  and 
mutually  intelligent  in  the  few  glances  with  which  they  involun- 
tarily honoured  each  other  during  the  journey;  for  when  the  train 
pulled  into  the  station,  they  left  together,  and  walked  along  the 
street  quite  peacefully,  side  by  side,  just  as  if  it  were  to  be  taken 
as  a  matter  of  fact  that  they  would  remain  in  each  other's  com- 
pany. 

Man  is  a  gregarious  animal;  given  the  right  conditions,  one  man 
will  seek  out  the  company  of  another.  Neither  defiance  nor  re- 
serve is  of  the  slightest  avail;  there  is  something  that  conquers  the 
strongest  man  when  he  finds  another  who  will  yield.  Then  it  is 
that  what  was  formerly  regarded  as  contentment  with  loneliness  is 
unmasked  and  shown  to  be  nothing  more  than  ordinary  self- 
deception. 

"I  presume  you  wish  to  go  home  and  change  your  clothes,"  said 
Eberhard,  standing  on  the  street  corner. 

"I  am  already  dry,"  said  Daniel,  "and  I  really  have  no  desire  to 
go  home.  Over  there  on  Schutt  Island  is  a  little  inn  called 
the  Peter  Vischer.  I  like  it  because  it  is  frequented  only  by  old 
people  who  talk  about  old  times,  and  because  it  is  situated  on  a 
bridge,  so  that  you  have  the  feeling  you  are  in  a  ship  floating  around 
on  the  water." 

Eberhard  went  along.  From  eight  o'clock  till  midnight  they  sat 
there  opposite  each  other.  Their  conversation  was  limited  to  such 
remarks  as,  "It  is  really  quite  comfortable  here." — "It  seems  to 
have  stopped  raining." — "Yes,  it  has  stopped." — "That  old  white 
bearded  man  over  by  the  stove  who  is  doing  so  much  talking  is  a 
watchmaker  from  Unschlitt  Place." — "So?  He  looks  pretty 
husky." — "He  is  said  to  have  fought  in  the  battle  of  Worth." — And 
so  their  remarks  ran. 

When  they  separated,  Eberhard  knew  that  Daniel  would  again 
be  at  the  Peter  Vischer  on  Wednesday  of  the  following  week,  and 
Daniel  knew  that  he  would  find  the  Baron  there. 


ELEANORE  301 


Philippina  was  on  her  knees  by  the  hearth,  cleaning  out  the 
ashes;  Eleanore  was  sitting  by  the  kitchen  table,  adding  up  the 
week's  expenses  in  a  narrow  note-book. 

"You  ought-a  git  married,  Eleanore,"  said  Philippina,  as  she 
blew  on  a  hot  coal,  "  'deed  you  ought;  it's  the  right  time  for 
you." 

"Ah,  leave  me  alone,"  said  Eleanore  angrily. 

Philippina  crouched  still  lower  on  the  hearth:  "I  mean  well  by 
you,  I  do,"  she  said.  "You're  simply  killing  yourself  here.  With 
your  white  skin  and  sugary  eyes — uhm,  uhm!  You  bet  if  I  had 
'em  like  yours  I'd  git  one.  Men  are  all  as  dumb  as  shoats  outside 
of  a  sty." 

"Keep  quiet,"  said  Eleanore,  and  went  on  counting:  "Seven  from 
fifteen  leaves  eight.  .  .  ." 

"An  angel  has  made  your  bed,"  interrupted  Philippina  with  a 
giggle,  "I  know  a  fellow,"  she  went  on,  her  face  becoming  rather 
sour,  "he's  just  the  right  one.  Money?  whew!  He's  stuck  on 
you  too,  believe  me!  If  I  wuz  to  go  to  him  and  say,  Eleanore 
Jordan  is  willing,  I  believe  the  old  codger  would  give  me  a  bag  of 
gold.  Cross  my  heart,  Eleanore,  and  he's  a  fine  man  too.  He  can 
play  the  piano  just  as  good  as  Daniel,  if  not  better.  When  he 
plays  you  can  see  the  sparks  fly." 

Eleanore  got  up,  and  closed  the  book.  "Do  you  want  me  to 
give  you  a  present  for  finding  me  a  man,  Philippina?"  she  asked, 
with  a  sympathetic  smile.  "And  you  are  trying  to  sound  me?  Go 
on,  you  fool." 

"Come  wind  and  blow  my  fire  hot,  so  that  my  soup  be  not 
forgot,"  whispered  Philippina  with  a  gloomy  face. 

Eleanore  left  the  kitchen  and  went  upstairs.  Her  heart  was 
full  of  longing;  it  was  in  truth  almost  bursting  with  longing. 

XI 

It  was  at  the  beginning  of  October  that  Daniel  for  the  first  time 
visited  Ebcrhard  in  his  doll  house  up  by  the  castle. 

They  had  met  each  other  in  the  Peter  Vischer  on  the  evening 
agreed  upon,  but  there  was  a  special  party  there  that  evening,  a 
sort  of  a  clam-bake;  the  place  was  crowded;  the  noise  was  disagree- 
able, so  that  they  left  much  earlier  than  they  had  intended. 

They  walked  along  in  silence  until  they  reached  the  Town  Hall, 


302  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

when  Eberhard  said:  "Won't  you  come  up  and  sit  awhile  with  me?" 
Daniel  nodded. 

Eberhard  lighted  the  six  candles  of  a  chandelier  in  his  diminu- 
tive room.  Seeing  that  Daniel  was  surprised,  he  said:  "There  is 
nothing  I  hate  worse  than  gas  or  oil.  That  is  light;  gas  and  oil 
merely  give  off  illuminated  stench." 

For  a  while  there  was  complete  silence  in  the  room;  Daniel  had 
stretched  out  on  the  sofa. 

"Illuminated  stench,"  he  repeated  with  a  smile  of  satisfaction. 
"That  is  not  bad;  it  is  the  new  age  in  which  we  are  living.  I 
believe  they  call  it  fin  de-  siecle.  The  day  when  things  flourish  is 
gone;  everything  has  to  be  manufactured  now.  Men  have  be- 
come Americans,  gruesomely  sobered  by  the  intoxication  of  doing 
a  big  business;  women  have  lost  their  nicety  of  instinct;  the  cities 
have  become  colossal  steam  engines;  everybody,  young  and  old,  is 
on  his  belly  adoring  the  so-called  wonders  of  science,  just  as  if 
it  really  meant  anything  to  humanity  that  a  loafer  in  Paris  can 
sip  his  morning  coffee  and  crunch  his  rolls  while  reading  that  the 
Pope  spent  a  restful  night,  or  that  a  gun  has  been  invented  which 
will  send  a  bullet  through  fourteen  people  one  after  another, 
whereas  the  best  record  up  to  the  present  had  been  only  seven  to 
a  shot.  Who  can  create  anything,  who  can  draw  anything  from  his 
soul  under  such  conditions?  It  is  madness,  it  is  immoral  disci- 
pline." 

"Oh,  I  don't  know;  I  think  a  man  can  draw  something  from 
within  his  soul,"  said  the  Baron,  in  whose  face  a  bored,  peeved 
expression  gave  way  to  one  of  suspense.  "It  is  possible,  for  exam- 
ple, to  conjure  the  invisible  spirit  into  visibility." 

Daniel,  who  had  not  yet  suspected  that  the  Baron  was,  in  a  way, 
speaking  from  another  country  and  in  a  strange  tongue,  continued: 
"The  whole  supply  of  interest  and  enthusiasm  at  the  disposal  of 
the  nation  has  been  used  up.  The  venerable  creations  of  days 
gone  by  still  have  nominal  value;  that  is,  they  are  still  gaped  at 
and  praised,  but  creative,  reproductive,  and  moulding  power  they 
no  longer  have.  Otherwise  hocus-pocus  alone  prospers,  and  he 
who  does  forgive  it  is  not  forgiven.  But  life  is  short;  I  feel  it 
every  day;  and  if  you  do  not  attend  to  the  plant,  it  soon  withers 
and  dies." 

"It  **  not  only  hocus-pocus,"  replied  Eberhard,  who  was  now 
comp^teJy  transformed,  though  he  did  not  grasp  the  painful 
indignation  of  the  musician.  "You  see,  I  have  associated  but  very 
little  v.ith  men.  My  refuge  has  been  the  realm  of  departed  and 


ELEANORE  303 

invisible  spirits  who  take  on  visible  form  only  when  a  believing 
soul  makes  an  unaffected  appeal  to  them.  It  was  my  task  to  de- 
sensualise  and  de-materialise  myself;  then  the  spirits  took  on  shape 
and  form." 

Daniel  straightened  up,  and  saw  how  pale  the  Baron  had  be- 
come. It  seemed  to  him  that  they  were  both  quite  close  together, 
and  at  the  same  time  poles  removed  from  each  other.  He  could 
not  refrain  however  from  taking  up  the  thread  of  his  thought. 
"Yes,  yes,"  he  exclaimed  with  the  same  short,  jerky  laugh  that 
accompanied  the  beginning  of  the  conversation,  "my  little  spirits 
also  demand  faith,  credulity,  and  whine  and  cry  for  form  and 
shape.  You  have  expressed  yourself  in  an  admirable  way,  Baron." 

"And  have  you  given  up  in  final  resignation  with  regard  to 
your  spirits? "  asked  Eberhard,  in  a  serious  tone. 

"Resignation?  To  what?  Of  what?  Do  you  imagine  that 
is  necessary  in  my  case?  I  am  the  counterpart  of  Cronos.  My 
children  devour  me;  they  devour  my  living  body.  I  conjure  up 
spirits  and  endow  them  with  flesh  and  blood,  and  in  return  for 
what  I  do  they  convert  me  into  a  shadow.  They  are  rebellious 
fellows,  I  tell  you,  quite  without  mercy.  I  am  supposed  to  arouse 
a  citizenry  on  their  behalf  that  is  petrified  with  indifference. 
The  very  thing,  or  things,  that  offend  and  disgust  me,  I  am  sup- 
posed to  take  up  and  carry  about  on  an  unencumbered  shoulder. 
I  am  supposed  to  be  their  prostitute  and  offer  them  my  body  at  a 
price.  I  am  supposed  to  be  their  retail  grocer  and  haggle  in  their 
behalf.  There  is  something  inspiring  about  a  struggle,  and  when 
the  enemy  is  worthy  of  one's  steel  there  is  a  distinct  pleasure  in 
entering  the  fray.  But  my  little  spirits  want  to  be  pampered  and 
have  a  lot  of  attention  paid  them.  The  hate,  consequently,  that 
is  being  dammed  up  within  me  is  possibly  nothing  but  rage  at  my 
fruitless  wooing.  No,  mine  is  not  an  honest  hate,  because  I  long 
to  get  at  every  ragged  beggar  who  will  have  nothing  to  do  with 
my  spirits,  because  my  entire  life  consists  in  pleading  for  an  audi- 
ence with  people  who  do  not  care  to  listen,  and  scraping  together 
pennies  of  love  from  people  who  cannot  love,  because  two  or  three 
are  not  enough  for  me,  because  I  must  have  thousands  and  am 
nothing  if  I  don't  have  thousands,  and  pine  away  in  anguish  and 
distress  if  I  cannot  imagine  that  the  whole  world  is  keeping  step 
with  my  pace  and  keeping  in  time  with  the  swing  of  my  baton. 
I  can  despise  Mushroom  Mike  who  lies  down  by  his  wife  at  night 
drunk  as  a  fool,  and  to  whom  the  name  of  Beethoven  is  an  empty 
sound;  Jason  Philip  Schimmelweis  makes  me  laugh  when  he  loob 


304  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

me  in  the  face  and  says,  I  don't  give  a  damn  for  all  your  art. 
And  yet  there  is  humanity  in  such  people,  and  so  long  as  this  is 
true  I  must  have  them;  I  must  convince  them,  even  if  my  heart  is 
torn  from  my  breast  in  the  attempt.  Would  you  call  this  life? 
This  digging-up  of  corpses  from  the  graves,  and  breathing  the 
breath  of  life  into  them  so  that  they  may  dance?  And  doing  it 
with  the  consciousness  that  this  moment  is  the  only  one?  I  am; 
I  exist;  here  is  the  table,  there  are  the  wax  candles,  and  over  there 
sits  a  man;  and  when  I  have  stopped  talking  everything  is  dif- 
ferent, everything  is  as  if  a  year  had  passed  by,  and  everything 
is  irrevocable.  Show  me  a  way  to  humanity,  to  men,  and  then 
I  will  believe  in  God." 

The  Baron's  head  swam;  his  brain  felt  close;  it  seemed  to  be 
sultry,  stuffy  in  his  skull.  He  could  not  help  but  think  of  certain 
exciting  meetings  where  the  people  had  sat  in  the  dark  in  trem- 
bling expectancy  and  then  suddenly  heard  a  voice  from  beyond  the 
tomb  at  the  sound  of  which  the  marrow  froze  in  their  bones.  He 
hardly  dared  look  at  the  place  where  Daniel  was  sitting.  The 
words  of  the  musician  caused  him  infinite  pain:  there  lay  in  them 
a  greediness,  a  shamelessness,  and  a  gruesomeness  that  filled  him 
with  terror. 

He  could  almost  have  asked:  And  Eleanore?     And  Eleanore? 

But  however  much  he  felt  repelled,  owing  to  his  training,  asso- 
ciation, and  general  views  of  life,  there  was  nevertheless  something 
about  the  whole  situation  before  which  he  bowed.  He  could  not 
have  said  precisely  what  it  was,  but  it  seemed  to  be  a  compromise 
between  fear  and  convulsion. 

As  he  was  pondering  over  it  all,  he  heard  a  rattling  at  the  win- 
dow. He  looked  up,  and  saw  the  face  of  Herr  Carovius  pressed 
so  tightly  against  the  pane  that  his  nose  was  as  flat  as  a  pan-cake, 
while  his  glasses  looked  like  two  opalescent  grease  spots  on  the 
water. 

Daniel  also  looked  up;  he  too  saw  the  face  of  Herr  Carovius, 
then  distorted  with  wrath  and  filled  with  threats.  He  looked  at 
the  Baron  in  amazement;  the  latter  got  up  and  said:  "You  will  have 
to  pardon  the  annoyance;  I  forgot  to  draw  the  blinds." 

With  that  he  went  to  the  window,  and  pulled  down  the  dark 
shade  over  the  face  of  Herr  Carovius. 

XII 

That   same   night,   just   as  Daniel    was   crossing   the   hall   of   his 


ELEANORE  305 

apartment,  he  detected  a  strong  scent  of  flowers.  He  had  smelt 
them  before,  but  they  had  never  seemed  to  be  so  fragrant  as  at 
present.  Because  of  the  season  of  the  year,  the  sensation  was  all 
the  more  pronounced  and  unusual. 

He  sniffed  around  for  a  while,  and  then  saw  that  the  door  to 
Eleanore's  room  was  open:  her  light  was  shining  out  on  the  stairs. 

When  Daniel  was  not  at  home  of  an  evening,  Eleanore  always 
kept  her  door  open  so  that  she  could  hear  when  he  came  in. 
Daniel  was  unaware  of  this;  he  had  never  seen  the  light  on  any 
previous  night. 

He  thought  for  a  moment,  then  locked  the  door,  and  went  up 
the  stairs.  But  Eleanore  must  have  heard  his  approaching  footsteps; 
for  she  stepped  hastily  out  into  the  vestibule,  and  said  with  evident 
embarrassment:  "Please  stay  downstairs,  Daniel;  Father  is  asleep. 
If  you  wish  I  will  come  down  to  the  living  room." 

She  did  not  wait  for  his  answer,  but  went  into  her  room,  got 
the  table  lamp,  and  followed  Daniel  to  the  living  room.  Daniel 
closed  the  window,  and  shook  as  if  he  were  cold;  for  it  was  a  cool 
night,  and  there  was  no  fire  in  the  stove. 

"What  is  this  I  smell?"  he  asked.  "Have  you  so  many  flowers 
up  in  your  room?" 

"Yes,  I  have  some  flowers,"  replied  Eleanore,  and  blushed. 

He  looked  at  her  rather  sharply,  but  was  disinclined  to  make 
any  further  inquiry,  or  he  was  not  interested  in  knowing  what  this 
all  meant.  He  walked  around  the  room  with  his  hands  in  his 
pockets. 

Eleanore  had  sat  down  on  a  chair;  she  never  once  took  her 
eyes  off  Daniel. 

"Listen,  Daniel,"  she  said  suddenly,  and  the  violin  tone  of  her 
voice  lifted  him  from  his  mute  and  heavy  meditations,  "I  know 
now  what  Father  is  doing." 

"Well,  what  is  the  old  man  doing?"  asked  Daniel  distractedly. 

"He  is  working  at  a  doll,  Daniel." 

"At  a  doll?     Are  you  trying  to  poke  fun  at  me?" 

Eleanore,  whose  cheeks  had  turned  pale,  began  to  tell  her  story: 
"Yesterday  afternoon,  Father  took  advantage  of  the  beautiful 
weather,  and  went  on  a  walk  for  the  first  time  in  a  long  while. 
During  his  absence,  I  went  to  his  room  to  straighten  it  up  a  little.  I 
noticed  that  the  door  to  the  large  cabinet  was  not  closed  as  usual, 
but  was  standing  ajar.  He  probably  forgot  to  lock  it.  I  did  not 
suspect  anything,  and  knew  that  there  was  no  harm  in  what  I 
was  going  to  do,  so  I  opened  the  door,  and  what  did  I  see?  A 


306  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

big  doll,  about  the  size  of  a  four-year-old  child,  a  wax  figure  with 
big  eyes  and  long,  yellow  hair.  But  there  were  no  clothes  on  it: 
the  lower  part  of  the  back  and  the  front  from  the  neck  to  the 
legs  had  been  removed.  Inside,  there  where  a  person's  heart  and 
entrails  are,  was  a  network  of  wheels  and  screws  and  little  tubes  and 
wires,  all  made  of  real  metal." 

"That   is  strange,   really  strange.     Well?" 

"He  is  making  something,"  continued  Eleanore,  "that  much  is 
clear.  But  if  I  could  tell  you  how  I  felt  when  I  saw  the  thing! 
I  never  felt  so  sad  in  my  life.  I  have  shown  him  so  little  love, 
just  as  Fate  has  been  so  unlovely  to  him.  And  everything — the 
air  and  the  light  and  the  people  and  how  one  feels  towards  the 
people  and  how  they  feel  towards  you,  all  seemed  to  me  to  be  so 
hopelessly  without  love  that  I  could  not  help  it:  I  just  sat  down 
before  that  doll  and  cried.  The  poor  man!  The  poor  old 
man!" 

"Strange,  really  strange,"  repeated  Daniel. 

After  a  while,  as  if  conscious  of  his  guilt,  he  took  a  seat  by  the 
table.  Eleanore  however  got  up,  went  to  the  window,  and  leaned 
her  forehead  against  the  glass. 

"Come  here  to  me,  Eleanore,"  said  Daniel  in  a  changed  tone 
of  voice. 

She  came.  He  took  her  hand  and  looked  into  her  face.  "How 
in  the  world  have  you  been  keeping  the  house  going  all  this 
time?"  he  asked,  viewing  the  situation  in  the  light  of  his  guilty 
conscience. 

Eleanore  let  her  eyes  fall  to  the  floor.  "I  have  done  my  writ- 
ing, and  I  have  had  considerable  success  with  the  flowers.  I  have 
even  been  able  to  save  a  little  money.  Don't  look  at  me  like  that, 
Daniel.  It  was  nothing  wonderful  I  did;  you  have  no  reason  to 
feel  especially  grateful  to  me." 

He  drew  her  down  on  his  knees,  and  threw  his  arms  around  her 
shoulders.  "You  probably  think  I  have  forgotten  you,"  he  said 
sorrowfully,  and  looked  up,  "that  I  have  forgotten  my  Eleanore. 
Forget  my  Eleanore?  My  spirit  sister?  No,  no,  dear  heart,  you 
have  known  for  a  long  while  that  we  have  begun  our  common 
pilgrimage — for  life,  for  death." 

Eleanore  lay  in  his  arms;  her  face  was  perfectly  white;  her 
body  was  rigid;  her  eyes  were  closed. 

Daniel  kissed  her  eyes:  "You  must  hold  me,  keep  me,  even  when 
it  seems  that  I  have  left  you,"  he  murmured. 

Then  he  carried  her  in  his  arms  through  the  door  into  his  room. 


ELEANORE  307 

"I  have  so  longed,  I  have  been  so  full  of  longing,"  she  said, 
pressing  her  lips  to  his  neck. 


XIII 

Before  one  could  realise  it,  winter  had  come,  and  the  Place 
with  the  Church  was  covered  with  snow. 

Eleanore  had  gone  skating;  when  she  returned  she  sat  down  in 
the  living  room  to  wait  for  Daniel.  There  she  sat  with  her  fur 
cap  on  her  head,  holding  her  skates  in  her  hand  by  the  cord:  she 
was  tired — and  she  was  thinking. 

Daniel  entered  the  room  and  greeted  her;  she  looked  up,  and 
said  with  a  gentle  voice:  "I  am  with  child,  Daniel;  I  found  it  out 
to-day." 

He  fell  on  his  knees,  and  kissed  the  tips  of  her  fingers. 
Eleanore  drew  a  deep  breath;  a  smile  of  dream-like  cheerfulness 
spread  over  her  face. 

The  following  day  Daniel  went  to  the  Town  Hall,  and  made 
arrangements  to  have  the  banns  posted. 

Hardly  had  Philippina  heard  that  Daniel  and  Eleanore  were 
to  get  married  in  February  when  she  disappeared;  she  did  not 
leave  a  trace  of  her  whereabouts  behind  her.  Little  Agnes  cried  in 
vain  for  her  "Pina."  Six  days  after  Philippina  had  left,  she  came 
back  just  as  mysteriously  as  she  had  gone  away.  She  was  des- 
perately gloomy;  her  hair  was  towsled,  her  clothes  were  wrin- 
kled, there  were  no  soles  on  her  shoes;  she  was  as  speechless  as  a 
clod,  and  remained  so  for  weeks. 

No  one  knew,  nor  has  any  one  ever  found  out,  what  she  did 
during  those  six  days  or  where  she  had  been. 

Eleanore  insisted  on  a  church  wedding;  this  caused  Daniel  a 
great  deal  of  worry;  it  made  him  run  many  a  vexatious  errand. 
But  he  consented  to  do  as  Eleanore  had  asked;  for  he  did  not  wish 
to  deprive  her  of  any  pleasure  she  might  imagine  such  a  ceremony 
would  give  her.  Eleanore  made  her  own  white  dress  and  her  veil. 
Gisela  Degen,  a  younger  sister  of  Martha  Riibsam,  and  Elsa 
Schneider,  the  daughter  of  the  rector  of  the  Church  of  St.  /Egy- 
dius,  were  to  be  her  bridesmaids.  Marian  Nothafft  and  Eva 
were  also  to  come  over  from  Eschenbach;  Eleanore  had  already 
sent  them  the  money  for  the  tickets. 

"Help  me  with  my  sewing,  Philippina,"  said  Eleanore  one 
evening  and  handed  her  silent  house  companion  the  veil,  the 
border  of  which  had  to  be  made. 


3o8  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

Philippina  took  her  seat  opposite  Eleanore,  and  began  to  sew; 
she  was  silent.  In  the  meanwhile,  little  Agnes,  tottering  about  on 
the  floor,  fell  and  began  to  cry  in  a  most  pitiable  fashion.  Elea- 
uore  hastened  over  and  picked  the  child  up.  Just  then  she  heard 
a  sound  as  if  cloth  were  being  torn.  She  looked  around,  and  saw 
that  the  veil  had  an  ugly  rip  in  it:  "You  wicked  thing!  What 
do  you  mean,  Philippina?"  she  exclaimed. 

"I  didn't  do  it;  it  tore  itself,"  growled  Philippina,  taking  every 
precaution  to  see  that  Eleanore  might  not  catch  her  cowardly  eye. 

"You  just  leave  that  alone!  Keep  your  hands  off  of  it!  You 
will  sew  evil  thoughts  into  my  veil,"  replied  Eleanore,  filled  with 
forebodings. 

Philippina  got  up.  "Well,  it's  torn  anyway,  the  veil,"  she  said 
in  a  defiant  tone;  "if  harm  is  to  come  it  will  come;  you  can't 
keep  it  off  by  sending  me  away."  Philippina  left  the  room. 

The  injury  to  the  veil  was  not  as  great  as  Eleanore  had  feared. 
It  was  a  relatively  easy  matter  to  cut  off  the  torn  piece  entirely, 
and  still  use  the  remainder. 

But  from  that  hour  Eleanore  was  filled  with  sadness:  her  face 
might  be  compared  to  a  beautiful  landscape  on  which  the  first  fog 
of  autumn  has  settled.  It  is  probable  that  the  tearing  of  her  veil 
had  nothing  to  do  with  her  depression:  there  was  not  a  shimmer 
of  superstition  in  her.  Perhaps  it  was  merely  happiness  and  ful- 
filment: it  may  be  that  she  felt  the  end  had  come,  that  happiness 
and  fulfilment  leave  nothing  more  to  be  desired,  that  life  from 
then  on  would  be  nothing  but  a  hum-drum  existence  which  does 
not  give  but  only  takes. 

Perhaps  her  mind  was  darkened  and  weighed  down  with  grief 
because  of  the  life  within  her  body;  for  that  which  is  to  come 
sends  out  its  rays  of  melancholy  just  as  well  as  that  which  has  come 
and  gone.  What  was  there  to  hinder  a  pure  soul  from  having  an 
inner  premonition  of  the  fate  that  was  in  store  for  it?  Why 
should  this  soul  not  learn  in  its  dreams  of  the  inevitable  that  was 
not  so  far  ahead? 

It  was  impossible  to  notice  any  change  in  Eleanore;  her  eyes 
were  bright;  she  seemed  peaceful.  She  would  often  sit  before  the 
mask  of  Zingarella;  she  hung  it  with  fresh  flowers  every  day:  to 
her  the  mask  was  a  mysterious  picture  of  all  that  her  own  being, 
her  own  life,  embraced. 

Marian  Nothafft  came  to  the  wedding  alone.  Just  as  in  the 
case  of  Daniel's  wedding  to  Gertrude,  she  had  left  the  child  with 
a  neighbour.  She  told  Daniel  and  Eleanore  that  she  could  not 


ELEANORE  309 

think  of  taking  the  child  out  on  such  a  journey  in  the  dead  of 
winter.  She  mentioned  Eva's  name  or  talked  about  her  only  in  a 
half  audible,  subdued  voice,  a  tender  smile  playing  gently  about 
her  lips. 

Among  those  present  at  the  wedding  in  the  /Egydius  Church 
were  Judge  and  Frau  Riibsam,  Councillor  Bock,  Impresario  Dor- 
maul,  Philippina  Schimmelweis,  Marian  Nothafft,  and  Inspector 
Jordan.  On  the  very  last  bench  sat  Herr  Carovius;  underneath 
one  of  the  pillars,  unseen  by  most  of  the  people  in  the  church, 
stood  Baron  Eberhard  von  Auffenberg. 

Philippina  walked  along  in  an  ugly,  crouched,  cowering  fashion 
by  the  side  of  Jordan ;  had  it  not  been  that  she  was  constantly 
chewing  her  finger  nails,  one  would  have  thought  she  was  asleep. 

As  the  bridal  couple  was  marching  up  to  the  altar,  the  sun  broke 
out,  and  shone  through  the  windows  of  the  old  church.  The 
effect  was  touching;  for  just  then  Eleanore  raised  her  head, 
stroked  her  veil  back  from  her  forehead,  and  caught  the  full  light 
of  the  sun  in  her  radiant  face. 

Old  Jordan  had  laid  his  forehead  on  the  prayer-desk;  his  back 
was  quivering. 

XIV 

Late  at  night  and  in  senseless  excitement — for  he  was  thinking 
of  a  bridal  bed  that  filled  him  with  the  most  intense  pangs  of 
jealousy — Herr  Carovius  sat  in  his  room  playing  Chopin's  etudf 
of  the  revolution.  He  would  begin  it  again  and  again;  he  struck 
the  keys  with  ever-increasing  violence;  the  time  in  which  he 
played  the  etude  became  wilder  and  wilder;  the  swing  of  his  ges- 
tures became  more  and  more  eloquent;  and  his  face  became  more 
and  more  threatening. 

He  was  squaring  accounts  with  the  woman  he  had  been  unable 
to  bring  before  his  Neronic  tribunal  in  bodily  form;  and  all  the 
pent-up  hatred  in  his  heart  for  the  musician  Nothafft  he  was 
emptying  into  the  music  of  another  man.  The  envy  of  the  man 
doomed  to  limit  his  display  of  talent  to  the  appreciation  of  what 
another  had  created  laid  violent  hands  on  the  creator;  the  impotence 
of  the  taster  was  infuriated  at  the  cook.  It  was  as  if  a  flunked 
and  floored  comedian  had  gone  out  into  the  woods  to  declaim  his 
part  with  nothing  but  the  echo  of  his  own  voice  to  answer  back. 

His  hatred  of  things  in  general,  of  the  customs  of  human 
society,  of  order  and  prosperity,  of  state  and  family,  of  love  and 


3io  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

marriage,  of  man  and  woman,  had  burst  out  into  lurid  flames.  It 
was  rare  that  a  man  had  so  cut,  slashed,  and  vilified  himself  as 
did  this  depatriated  citizen  while  playing  the  piano.  He  con- 
verted music  into  an  orgy,  a  debauch,  a  debasing  crime. 

"Enough!"  he  bellowed,  as  he  closed  with  an  ear-splitting  dis- 
cord. He  shut  the  piano  with  a  vituperative  bang,  and  threw  him- 
self into  a  rickety  leather  chair. 

What  his  inner  eye  saw  mocks  at  language  and  defies  human 
speech.  He  was  in  that  house  over  there;  it  lay  in  his  power  to 
murder  his  rival;  he  could  abuse  the  woman  who  had  been  denied 
him  by  the  wily  tricks  of  circumstances;  he  chastised  her;  he 
dragged  her  from  her  bed  of  pleasure  by  the  hair.  He  feasted 
on  her  sense  of  shame  and  on  the  angry  twitchings  of  the  musician, 
tied,  bound,  and  gagged.  He  spared  them  no  word  of  calumnia- 
tion. The  whole  city  stood  before  his  court,  and  listened  to  the 
sentence  he  passed.  Everybody  stood  in  awe  of  him. 

Thus  it  is  that  the  citizen  of  the  moral  stature  of  Herr  Carovius 
satisfies  his  thirst  for  revenge.  Thus  does  the  Nero  of  our  time 
punish  the  crimes  mankind  commits  against  him  in  that  it  creates 
pleasures  and  enjoyments  of  which  he  is  not  in  a  position  to 
partake. 

But  because  he  felt  more  abandoned  to-day  than  ever,  and  more 
fearful  in  his  abandonment,  and  because  he  felt  so  keenly  the 
injustice  done  him  by  the  man  on  whom  he  had  hung  for  years 
with  dog-like  fidelity,  and  who  avoided  him  to-day  as  one  avoids 
an  old  dog  that  is  no  longer  fit  for  anything,  he  decided  in  the 
depths  of  his  embittered  soul  to  avenge  himself,  and  to  do  it  by  a 
means  that  would  be  quite  different  from  playing  the  piano  in 
accordance  with  the  rules  of  his  own  perverted  fancy. 

With  this  decision  in  mind  he  sought  sleep — at  last. 


Jordan  was  now  living  all  alone  in  the  two  attic  rooms.  He 
had  asked  of  his  own  will  that  he  be  permitted  to  take  over  the 
clerical  work  Eleanore  had  been  doing,  and  her  employers  had 
agreed  to  this  arrangement.  He  was  consequently  enabled  to  pay 
the  rent  and  a  little  on  his  board. 

Daniel  and  Eleanore  slept  in  the  corner  room  in  the  front.  Daniel 
moved  his  piano  into  the  living  room,  and  did  all  his  work  there. 
Philippina  and  Agnes  remained  in  the  room  next  to  the  kitchen. 

Eleanore  still  made   the  bouquets,  and  still   received   the   fancy 


ELEANORE  3" 

price  for  them  from  the  unknown  purchaser.  But  she  did  not 
attend  to  her  flowers  in  Daniel's  presence,  or  even  near  him;  she 
did  this  in  the  old  room  up  next  to  the  roof. 

Her  father  would  sit  by  her,  and  look  at  her  thoughtfully.  She 
had  the  feeling  that  he  knew  of  everything  that  had  taken  place 
between  her  and  Gertrude  and  Daniel,  but,  out  of  infinite  delicacy 
and  modesty,  and  also  in  grief  and  pain,  had  never  said  a  word 
about  it.  For  previous  to  her  marriage  with  Daniel,  he  had  never 
been  with  her;  he  had  never  sat  and  looked  at  her  so  attentively; 
he  had  always  passed  by  her  in  great  haste,  and  had  always  shown 
an  inclination  to  be  alone. 

She  had  the  feeling  that  he  knew  a  great  deal  in  general  about 
men  and  things,  but  rarely  said  anything  because  of  his  superior 
sense  of  gentleness  and  compassion. 

Daniel  lived  about  as  he  did  before  the  wedding.  He  would 
sit  at  the  table  until  late  at  night  and  write.  It  often  happened 
that  Eleanore  would  find  him  sitting  there  with  his  pen  in  his  hand, 
sound  asleep,  when  she  got  up  early  in  the  morning.  She  always 
smiled  when  this  took  place,  and  wakened  him  by  kissing  him  on  the 
forehead. 

He  wrote  the  notes  direct  from  his  memory,  from  his  head,  just 
as  other  people  write  letters.  He  no  longer  needed  an  instrument 
to  try  what  he  had  composed  or  to  give  him  an  inspiration  for  a 
new  theme. 

Once  he  showed  Eleanore  eighteen  variations  of  the  same  melody. 
He  had  spent  the  whole  night  making  changes  in  a  single  composi- 
tion. Eleanore's  heart  was  heavy:  she  came  very  nearly  asking, 
"For  whom,  Daniel?  For  what?  The  trunk  up  in  the  attic?" 

She  slowly  began  to  perceive  that  it  is  not  brooding  reason  that 
climbs  and  conquers  the  steos  of  perfection,  but  moral  will.  Like 
a  flash  of  lightning  she  recognised  one  day  the  demoniacal  element 
in  this  impulse,  an  impulse  she  had  been  accustomed  to  ascribe  to 
his  everlasting  fidgeting,  fumbling,  and  grumbling.  She  shuddered 
at  the  hitherto  unsuspected  distress  of  the  man,  and  took  pity  on 
him:  he  was  burying  himself  in  darkness  in  order  to  give  the  world 
more  light. 

The  world?  What  did  it  know  about  the  creations  of  her  Daniel! 
The  big  trunk  was  full  of  ofui  upon  opus,  and  not  a  soul  troubled 
itself  about  all  these  musical  treasures  resting  in  a  single  coffin. 

There  was  something  wrong  here,  she  thought.  There  must  be  a 
lost  or  broken  wheel  in  the  clock-work  of  time;  there  was  some 
disease  among  men;  some  poison,  some  evil,  some  heinous  oversight. 


3i2  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

She  could  think  of  nothing  else.  One  day  she  decided  to  visit 
old  Herold.  At  first  he  acted  as  though  he  would  chew  her  to 
pieces,  but  afterwards  he  became  more  civil,  at  least  civil  enough  to 
listen  to  her.  Her  features  were  remarkably  brilliant  and  agile  as 
she  spoke.  He  expressed  himself  as  follows  later  on:  "If  some  one 
had  promised  me  eternal  blessedness  on  condition  that  I  forget  the 
picture  of  this  pregnant  woman,  as  she  stood  before  me  and  argued 
the  case  of  Daniel  Nothafft  vs.  The  Public,  I  would  have  been 
obliged  to  forego  the  offer,  for  I  could  never  have  fulfilled  my 
part  of  the  agreement.  Forget  her?  Who  would  demand  the 
impossible? " 

Old  Herold  begged  her  to  send  him  one  of  Daniel's  latest  com- 
positions, if  she  could.  She  said  she  would,  and  the  next  morning 
she  took  from  the  trunk  the  quartette  in  B  minor  for  strings,  and 
carried  it  over  to  the  professor.  He  laid  the  score  before  him,  and 
began  to  read.  Eleanore  took  a  seat,  and  patiently  studied  the  many 
little  painted  pictures  that  hung  on  the  wall. 

The  hour  was  up.  The  white-haired  man  turned  the  last  leaf 
and  struck  his  clenched  fist  on  the  paper,  while  around  his  leonine 
mouth  there  was  a  play  partly  of  wrath  and  partly  of  awe.  He  said: 
"The  case  will  be  placed  on  the  calendar,  you  worthiest  of  all 
Eleanores,  but  I  am  no  longer  the  herald." 

He  walked  back  and  forth,  wrung  his  hands,  and  cried:  "What 
structure!  What  colourful  tones!  What  a  wealth  of  melody, 
rhythm,  and  originality!  What  discipline,  sweetness,  power!  What 
a  splendid  fellow  he  is!  And  to  think  that  a  man  like  that  lives 
right  here  among  us,  and  plagues  and  tortures  himself!  A  disgrace 
and  a  shame  it  is!  Come,  my  dear  woman,  we  will  go  to  him  at 
once.  I  want  to  press  him  to  my  bosom.  .  .  ." 

But  Eleanore,  whose  face  burned  with  the  feeling  of  good  for- 
tune, interrupted  him,  and  said:  "If  you  do  that,  you  will  spoil 
everything.  It  will  be  much  better  to  tell  me  what  to  do.  He 
will  become  more  and  more  obstinate  and  bitter,  if  some  ray  of 
light  does  not  soon  fall  on  what  he  has  thus  far  created." 

The  old  man  thought  for  a  while:  "You  leave  the  score  with  me; 
I'll  see  what  I  can  do  with  it;  I  have  an  idea,"  he  replied,  after 
a  short  time  had  elapsed. 

Eleanore  went  back  home  full  of  hope. 

The  quartette  was  sent  to  Berlin,  and  placed  in  the  hands  of 
a  man  oi  influence  and  discrimination.  Some  professional  musicians 
soon  became  acquainted  with  it  and  its  merits.  Professor  Herold 
received  a  number  of  enthusiastic  letters,  and  answered  them  with 


ELEANORE  313 

characteristic  and  becoming  shrewdness.  A  cycle  of  sagas  was 
soon  afloat  in  Berlin  concerning  the  habits  and  personality  of  the 
unknown  master.  It  was  said  that  he  was  an  anchorite  who  lived 
in  the  Franconian  forests  and  preached  renunciation  of  all  earthly 
pleasures. 

In  Leipzig  the  quartette  was  played  before  an  invited  audience. 
The  applause  was  quite  different  from  what  it  ordinarily  was  in  the 
case  of  a  public  that  is  surfeited  with  musical  novelties. 

Thereby  Daniel  finally  learned  what  had  been  done.  One  day 
he  received  a  letter  from  the  man  who  had  arranged  the  concert, 
a  certain  Herr  Lowenberg.  The  letter  closed  as  follows:  "A 
community  of  admirers  is  anxious  to  come  into  possession  of  your 
compositions.  They  send  you  their  greetings  at  present  with 
cordial  gratitude." 

Daniel  could  scarcely  believe  his  own  eyes;  it  was  like  magic. 
Without  saying  a  word  he  handed  the  letter  to  Eleanore.  She 
read  it,  and  looked  at  him  quietly. 

"Yes,  I  am  guilty,"  she  said,  "I  stole  the  quartette." 

"Is  that  so?  Do  you  realise,  Eleanore,  what  you  have  done 
to  me?" 

Elcanore's  face  coloured  with  surprise  and  fear. 

"You  ought  to  know;  probably  in  the  future  you  will  lose 
interest  in  such  womanish  wiles." 

He  walked  back  and  forth,  and  then  stepped  up  very  close  to 
her:  "You  probaby  think  I  am  an  idiotic  simpleton,  a  dullard. 
You  seem  to  feel  that  I  am  one  of  those  rustic  imbeciles,  who  has 
had  his  fingers  frozen  once,  and  spends  his  days  thereafter  sitting 
behind  the  stove,  grunting  and  shaking  every  time  anybody  says 
weather  to  him.  Well,  you  are  wrong.  There  was  a  period  when 
I  felt  more  or  less  like  that,  but  that  time  is  no  more." 

He  started  to  walk  back  and  forth  again;  again  he  stopped: 
"It  is  not  because  I  think  they  are  too  good,  nor  is  it  because 
I  am  too  inert  or  cowardly,  that  I  keep  my  compositions  under 
lock  and  key.  I  would  have  to  have  wheels  in  my  head  if  I  did 
not  have  sense  enough  to  know  that  the  effect  of  a  piece  is  just 
as  much  a  part  of  it  as  heat  is  a  part  of  fire.  Those  people  who 
claim  that  they  can  quite  dispense  with  recognition  and  success 
are  liars  and  that  only.  What  I  have  created  is  no  longer  my 
property:  it  longs  to  reach  the  world;  it  is  a  part  of  the  world; 
and  I  must  give  it  to  the  world,  provided,  do  you  hear?  •provided 
it  is  a  living  thing." 

"Well  then,  Daniel,"  said  Eleanore,  somewhat  relieved. 


3H  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

"That  is  where  the  trouble  lies,"  he  continued,  as  though  he 
had  never  been  interrupted,  "it  all  depends  on  whether  the  piece 
has  life,  reality,  the  essence  of  true  being  in  it.  What  is  the 
use  of  feeding  people  with  unripe  or  half-baked  stuff?  They 
have  far  too  much  of  that  already.  There  are  too  many  who  try 
and  even  can,  but  what  they  create  lacks  the  evidence  that  high 
heaven  insisted  on  its  being  created:  there  is  no  divine  must  about 
it.  My  imperfect  creations  would  merely  serve  as  so  many  stum- 
bling blocks  to  my  perfect  ones.  If  a  man  has  once  been  seduced 
by  the  public  and  its  applause,  so  that  he  is  satisfied  with  what 
is  only  half  perfect,  his  ear  grows  deaf,  his  soul  blind  before  he 
knows  it,  and  he  is  the  devil's  prey  forever.  It  is  an  easy  matter 
to  make  a  false  step,  but  there  is  no  such  thing  as  turning  back 
with  corrective  pace.  It  cannot  be  done;  for  however  numerous 
the  possibilities  may  be,  the  actual  deed  is  a  one-time  affair.  And 
however  fructifying  encouragement  from  without  may  be,  its  effects 
are  in  the  end  murderous  if  it  is  allowed  to  drown  out  conscience. 
What  I  have  created  in  all  these  years  is  good  enough  so  far  as  it 
goes,  but  it  is  merely  the  preparatory  drill  to  the  really  great  work 
that  is  hovering  before  my  mind.  It  is  possible  that  I  flatter 
myself;  it  may  be  that  I  am  being  cajoled  by  fraud  and  led  on  by 
visions;  but  it  is  in  me,  I  feel  certain  of  it,  and  it  must  come  to 
light.  Then  we  shall  see  what  sort  of  creature  it  is.  Then  all 
my  previous  works  will  have  ceased  to  exist;  then  I  will  bestir 
myself  in  a  public  way;  I  will  come  out  and  be  the  man  that  I 
really  am.  You  can  depend  on  it." 

Daniel  had  never  talked  t»  Eleanore  in  this  way  before.  As  she 
looked  at  him,  overcome  almost  by  the  passion  of  his  words,  and 
saw  him  standing  there  so  utterly  fearless,  so  unyielding  and 
unpitying,  her  breast  heaved  with  a  sigh,  and  she  said:  "God 
grant  that  you  succeed,  and  that  you  live  to  enjoy  the  fruits  of 
your  ambition." 

"It  is  all  a  matter  of  fate,  Eleanore,"  he  replied. 

He  demanded  the  quartette;  it  was  sent  back  to  him. 

From  then  on  Eleanore  suppressed  even  the  slightest  sense  of  dis- 
content that  arose  in  her  heart.  She  felt  that  he  needed  cruelty 
and  harshness  for  his  small  life  in  order  to  preserve  love  and 
patience  for  the  great  life. 

Yes,  she  prayed  to  Heaven  that  she  might  leave  him  harsh  and 
cruel. 


ELEANORE  315 


"Eleanore  is  my  wife,"  said  Daniel  every  now  and  then;  he 
would  even  stop  in  the  middle  of  the  street  in  order  to  enjoy  to 
the  full,  and  preserve  if  possible,  the  blessed  realisation  of  this  fact. 

He  always  knew  it.  Yet  when  he  was  with  Eleanore  he  fre- 
quently forgot  her  presence.  There  were  days  when  he  would 
pass  by  her  as  though  she  were  some  chance  acquaintance. 

Then  there  were  other  days  when  his  happiness  made  him  scep- 
tical; he  would  say:  "Is  it  then  really  happiness?  Am  I  happy? 
If  so,  why  is  it  that  I  do  not  feel  my  happiness  more  fervently, 
terribly?" 

He  would  frequently  study  her  form,  her  hands,  her  walk,  and 
wish  that  he  had  new  eyes,  so  that  he  might  see  her  anew.  He 
went  away  merely  in  order  that  he  might  see  her  better.  In  the 
night  he  would  take  a  candle,  and  go  up  to  her  bed:  a  gentle 
anguish  seemed  to  disappear  from  her  features,  his  own  pulse  beat 
more  rapidly.  This  was  caused  by  the  flame-blue  of  her  eyes. 

There  is  a  point  where  the  most  demure  and  chaste  woman 
differs  in  no  wise  from  a  prostitute.  This  is  the  source  of  infinite 
grief  to  the  man  who  loves.  No  woman  suspects  or  can  under- 
stand it. 

It  was  one  day  while  he  was  brooding  and  musing  and  quar- 
relling without  definite  reason,  in  the  arms  of  his  beloved,  that  the 
profound,  melancholy  motif  in  the  first  movement  of  his  symphony 
in  D  minor  came  to  him.  This  symphony  gradually  grew  into 
the  great  vision  of  his  life,  and,  many  years  later,  one  of  his 
women  admirers  gave  it  the  modifying  title  of  Promethean.  The 
first  time  the  theme  sounded  in  his  ears  he  roared  like  a  wild 
beast,  but  with  joy.  It  seemed  to  him  that  music  was  really  born 
at  that  moment. 

He  pressed  Eleanore  so  tightly  to  his  bosom  that  she  could  not 
breathe,  and  murmured  between  his  teeth:  "There  is  no  choice 
left:  we  have  got  to  remain  lifeless  and  irresponsive  to  each  other's 
presence  or  wound  one  another  with  love." 

"The  mask,  the  mask,"  whispered  Eleanore  anxiously,  and 
pointed  over  to  the  corner  from  which  the  mask  of  Zingarella, 
with  the  dim  light  falling  on  it,  shone  forth  like  the  weirdly  beau- 
tiful face  of  a  spectre. 

Philippina  stood  before  the  door,  and  listened  to  what  they 
were  saying.  She  had  caught  a  rat,  killed  it,  and  laid  the  cadaver 
in  the  door.  The  next  morning,  as  Eleanore  was  going  into  the 


316  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

kitchen,  she  saw  the  dead  rat,  screamed,  and  went  back  to  her 
room  trembling  with  fright. 

Daniel  stroked  her  hair,  and  said:  "Don't  worry,  Eleanore.  Rats 
belong  to  married  life  just  as  truly  as  salty  soup,  broken  dishes, 
and  holes  in  the  stockings." 

"Now  listen,  Daniel,  is  that  meant  as  a  reproach?"  she  asked. 

"No,  my  dear,  it  is  not  a  reproach;  it  is  merely  a  picture  of 
the  world.  You  have  the  soul  of  a  princess;  you  know  nothing 
about  rats.  Look  at  those  black,  staring,  pearly  eyes:  they  remind 
me  of  Jason  Philip  Schimmelweis  and  Alfons  Diruf  and  Alexander 
Dormaul ;  they  remind  me  of  the  reserved  table,  the  Kaffeeklatsch, 
smelly  feet,  evenings  at  the  club,  and  everything  else  that  is 
unappetising,  vulgar,  and  base.  Don't  look  at  me  in  such  aston- 
ishment, Eleanore,  I  have  just  had  an  ugly  dream;  that  is  all.  I 
dreamt  that  a  miserable-looking  wretch  came  up  to  me  and  kept 
asking  me  what  your  name  is,  and  I  couldn't  tell  him.  Just  think 
of  it:  I  could  not  recall  your  name.  It  was  terribly  annoying. 
Farewell,  farewell." 

He  had  put  on  his  hat  and  left.  He  ran  out  in  the  direction 
of  Feucht,  and  stayed  the  entire  day  in  the  open  fields  without 
taking  a  single  bit  of  nourishment  except  a  piece  of  black  bread 
and  a  glass  of  milk.  But  when  he  returned  in  the  evening  his 
pockets  were  bulging  with  notes  he  had  jotted  down  while  out 
there  by  himself. 

He  came  back  by  way  of  the  Castle,  and  knocked  at  Eberhard's 
door.  Since  there  was  no  one  at  home,  he  sauntered  around  for 
a  while  along  the  old  rampart,  and  then  returned  about  nine 
o'clock.  But  the  windows  were  still  dark. 

He  had  not  seen  Eberhard  for  two  months.  He  could  still 
recall  the  Baron's  depression  and  worry  the  last  time  he  had  talked 
with  him — it  was  toward  the  end  of  March:  he  had  spoken  very 
little  at  that  time  and  had  gazed  into  space  with  remarkably  lifeless 
eyes.  He  gave  the  impression  of  a  man  who  is  on  the  point  of 
doing  something  quite  out  of  the  ordinary  if  not  distinctly  terrible. 

Daniel  did  not  become  aware  of  this  until  now;  the  Baron's 
troubles,  whatever  they  were,  had  not  occurred  to  him  during  the 
past  weeks;  he  was  sorry  for  having  neglected  him  so. 

XVII 

When  he  came  home  Eleanore  was  suffering  from  premature 
birth  pains.  Philippina  greeted  him  with  the  words:  "There  is 


ELEANORE  317 

going  to  be  an  increase  in  the  family,  Daniel."  Whereat  she 
burst  out  in  a  coarse  laugh. 

"Shut  up,  you  beast,"  cried  Daniel:  "How  long  has  she  been 
suffering?  Why  didn't  you  get  the  nurse?" 

"Can  I  leave  the  child  here  alone?  Don't  growl  so!"  replied 
Philippina  angrily.  She  went  out  for  the  nurse.  In  a  half  an 
hour  she  came  back  with  her:  it  was  Frau  Hadebusch. 

Daniel  had  a  disagreeable  feeling.  He  wanted  to  raise  some 
questions  and  make  some  objections,  but  Frau  Hadebusch's  nimble 
tongue  anticipated  him.  She  grinned,  curtsied,  rolled  her  eyes, 
and  went  through  the  entire  category  of  acquired  mannerisms  on 
the  part  of  a  woman  of  her  type,  and  then  unloaded  her  life 
history:  Her  duly  wedded  husband  had  said  farewell  to  this  vale 
of  tears  three  years  ago,  and  since  then  she  had  been  supporting, 
as  well  as  she  could,  herself  and  her  poor  Henry,  the  idiot,  by 
hiring  out  as  a  mid-wife.  She  seemed  already  to  have  come  to 
an  understanding  with  Eleanore,  for  when  she  entered  the 
room,  Eleanore  greeted  her  as  though  she  were  an  old  acquaint- 
ance. 

While  Daniel  was  alone  with  Eleanore  for  a  few  minutes,  he 
asked  her  in  an  indignant  tone:  "How  did  you  ever  come  to  get 
that  vicious  woman?" 

Eleanore  replied  in  a  gentle  and  unsuspecting  tone:  "She  came 
to  me  one  day,  and  asked  to  be  called  in  when  the  child  was  born. 
She  said  she  was  awfully  fond  of  you,  and  that  you  had  once  lived 
in  her  house.  Well,  I  thought,  what  difference  does  it  make  who 
comes,  so  I  engaged  her,  and  there  she  is." 

It  was  only  with  the  greatest  difficulty  that  she  finished  say- 
ing what  was  on  her  mind.  Her  face,  white  as  a  sheet,  was 
pinched  with  an  expression  of  terrific  pain.  She  reached  for 
Daniel's  hand,  and  held  it  so  tightly  that  he  became  rigid  with 
anxiety. 

When  she  began  to  groan,  Daniel  turned  away  and  pressed  his 
fists  together.  Frau  Hadebusch  came  in  with  a  tub  of  hot  water: 
"This  is  no  place  for  men,"  she  exclaimed  with  a  kindly  twisting  of 
her  face,  took  Daniel  by  the  shoulder,  and  pushed  him  out  the 
door. 

Little  Agnes  was  standing  in  the  hall.     "Father,"  she  said. 

"Put  that  child  to  bed!"  said  Daniel,  turning  to  Philippina. 

Jordan  came  out  of  the  kitchen.  He  held  an  earthen  bowl  of 
soup  in  his  hand.  It  had  been  saved  for  him,  and  all  he  had  to 
do  was  to  hold  it  over  the  fire  and  heat  it  up.  He  went  up  to 


318  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

Daniel,  and  said,  as  his  chin  quivered:  "May  God  protect  her, 
and  be  merciful  to  her!" 

"Quit  that  kind  of  talk,  Father,"  said  Daniel  impatiently. 
"God  rules  with  reservations  that  make  me  insane." 

"Won't  you  say  good-night  to  little  Agnes?"  asked  Philippina 
in  a  rude,  rough  tone  from  the  other  room. 

He  went  in;  the  child  looked  at  him  timidly.  The  more  it 
grew,  the  greater  his  own  shyness  became  in  its  presence.  And 
the  constant  association  of  Eleanore  with  the  child  had  always 
been  a  source  of  worry  to  him.  There  was  one  thing  of  which 
he  was  mortally  certain:  he  could  not  see  Eleanore  in  bodily  form 
and  precisely  as  she  was,  when  Agnes,  with  her  Gertrude  eyes  and 
her  arched  Eleanore  mouth,  was  present  in  the  room  with  Eleanore. 
He  felt  that  Eleanore  had  been  transformed  into  the  sister  of 
Agnes,  that  she  was  still  only  a  sister.  And  this  he  felt  was  some- 
thing fatal. 

Both  of  the  sisters  looked  at  him  out  of  Agnes's  big  childish 
eyes;  in  her  they  were  both  melted  and  moulded  into  a  single 
being.  A  presageful  horror  crept  over  him.  Sisters!  The  word 
had  a  solemn  sound  in  his  ears;  it  seemed  full  of  mysterious  mean- 
ing; it  took  on  mythical  greatness. 

"Sleep,  baby,  sleep,  outside  are  two  sheep,  a  black  one  and  a 
white  one  .  .  ."  sang  Philippina  in  her  imbecile  way.  It  was 
astonishing  the  amount  of  malevolence  there  was  in  her  sing-song. 

Daniel  could  not  stand  it  in  the  house;  he  went  out  on  the  street, 
and  wandered  around  until  midnight.  If  he  made  up  his  mind  to 
go  home,  the  thought  occurred  to  him  at  once  that  Frau  Hadebusch 
would  prevent  him  from  going  into  Eleanore's  room.  He  felt  like 
lying  down  on  the  pavement  and  waiting  until  some  one  came  and 
told  him  how  Eleanore  was  getting  along. 


It  struck  one  just  as  ne  came  home.  The  maid  from  the  first 
floor  and  the  maid  from  the  second  were  standing  on  the  stairs. 
They  had  not  been  able  to  sleep;  they  had  heard  the  cries  of  the 
young  woman  from  their  rooms,  had  come  out,  joined  each  other, 
listened,  trembled,  and  whispered. 

Daniel  heard  one  of  them  say:  "The  Kapellmeister  should  send 
for  the  doctor." 

The  other  sobbed  and  replied:  "Yes,  but  a  doctor  can't  work 
miracles." 


ELEANORE  319 

"Lord,  Lord,"  they  cried,  as  a  nerve-racking  cry  from  Eleanors 
rang  through  the  bleak  house. 

Daniel  sprang  up  the  steps.  "Run  for  Dr.  Miiller  just  as  fast 
as  your  feet  can  carry  you,"  said  Daniel  to  Philippina,  who  was 
then  standing  in  the  kitchen  in  her  bare  feet  with  her  hair  hanging 
down  her  back.  Daniel  was  breathing  heavily;  Philippina  was 
making  some  tea.  Daniel  then  hastened  into  Eleanore's  room;  Frau 
Hadebusch  tried  to  keep  him  out,  but  he  pushed  her  to  one  side, 
gritted  his  teeth,  and  threw  himself  on  the  floor  by  Eleanore's  bed. 

She  raised  her  head;  she  was  a  pale  as  death;  the  perspiration 
was  pouring  down  over  her  face.  "You  shouldn't  be  here,  Daniel, 
you  shouldn't  see  me,"  she  said  with  much  effort,  but  her  tone 
was  so  commanding  and  final  that  Daniel  got  up  and  slowly  left 
the  room.  He  was  seized  with  a  strange,  violent  anger.  He  went 
out  into  the  kitchen  and  drank  a  glass  of  water,  and  then  hurled 
the  glass  on  the  floor:  it  broke  into  a  hundred  pieces. 

Frau  Hadebusch  had  followed  him;  she  looked  very  much  dis- 
couraged. When  he  noticed  the  frame  of  mind  she  was  in,  he 
became  dizzy;  he  had  to  sit  down  in  order  to  keep  from  falling. 
"Ah,  the  doctor  will  come,"  he  said  in  a  brusque  tone. 

"My  God,  it  makes  you  sick  at  the  stomach  to  see  how  women 
suffer  to-day,"  said  the  old  lady  in  her  shrillest,  one-tooth  voice; 
it  was  quite  plain  that  she  was  pleased  to  know  that  the  doctor  was 
coming.  The  present  case  had  got  her  into  serious  trouble,  and  she 
wanted  to  get  out  of  it.  "The  devil  to  these  women  who  are  so 
delicately  built,"  she  had  said  about  an  hour  ago  to  the  grinning 
Philippina. 

Philippina  came  back  with  the  announcement  that  Dr.  Miiller 
was  on  a  vacation:  "Well,  is  he  the  only  physician  in  the  city,  you 
dumb  oxf"  howled  Daniel,  "go  get  Dr.  Dingolfinger;  he  lives 
here  close  by:  right  over  there  by  the  Peller  House.  But  wait  a 
minute!  You  stay  here;  I'll  go  get  him." 

Dr.  Dingolfinger  was  a  Jewish  physician,  a  rather  old  man,  and 
Daniel  had  to  ring  and  ring  to  get  him  out  of  his  bed.  But 
finally  he  heard  the  bell,  got  up,  and  followed  Daniel  across  the 
square.  Daniel  had  left  the  lantern  burning  at  the  front  gate, 
and  with  it  he  lighted  the  doctor  through  the  court  and  up  the 
stairs. 

Then  he  sat  down  on  the  bench  in  the  kitchen;  how  long  he 
sat  there  he  did  not  know;  he  bent  his  body  forward  and  buried 
his  head  in  his  hands.  The  screams  became  worse  and  worse: 
they  were  no  longer  the  cries  of  Eleanore  but  of  some  unsouled, 


320  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

dehumanised  being.  Daniel  heard  them  all;  he  could  think  of 
nothing,  he  could  feel  nothing  but  that  voice.  At  times  the  ter- 
rible cry  ran  through  his  heart:  Sisters!  Sisters! 

Frau  Hadebusch  came  out  several  times  to  get  hot  water.  The 
yellow  tooth  in  her  lower  jaw  stuck  out  like  a  cracked,  lecherous 
remainder  and  reminder  of  her  past  life.  Once  Dr.  Dingolfinger 
himself  came  out,  rummaged  around  in  his  leather  case,  which  he 
had  left  in  the  hall,  looked  at  Daniel,  and  said:  "It  is  going  to 
come  out  all  right;  it  will  all  be  over  in  a  short  while."  At 
that  Philippina  poked  at  the  fire,  and  put  on  fresh  coals.  She 
looked  at  Daniel  out  of  one  corner  of  her  eye,  and  went  on  her 
way.  From  time  to  time  old  Jordan  rapped  on  the  wall  to  have 
Philippina  come  up  and  tell  him  how  things  were  going. 

It  must  have  been  about  four  o'clock  in  the  morning;  the  gloomy, 
grey  stones  in  the  walls  of  the  court  yard  were  already  being 
covered  with  rosy  tints  from  the  East.  There  was  a  cry  so  fearful, 
so  like  that  of  a  voice  from  the  wilds  of  the  heart,  that  Daniel 
sprang  to  his  feet  and  stood  trembling  in  every  limb. 

Then  it  became  quiet,  mysteriously,  uncannily  quiet. 

XIX 

He  sat  down  again;  after  a  while  his  eyes  closed,  and  he  fell 
asleep. 

He  must  have  slept  about  half  an  hour  when  he  was  wakened 
by  the  sound  of  foot-steps. 

Standing  around  him  were  the  physician,  Frau  Hadebusch,  and 
Philippina.  The  doctor  said  something  at  which  Daniel  shook 
his  head.  It  sounded  like:  "Unfortunately  I  cannot  keep  the  sad 
news  from  you."  Daniel  did  not  understand  him;  he  drew  his 
lips  apart,  and  thought:  "The  idea  of  dreaming  such  disordered 
stuff!" 

"Mother  and  child  are  both  dead,"  said  the  old  physician,  with 
tears  in  his  eyes.  "Both  dead.  It  was  a  boy.  Science  was  power- 
less; nature  was  hostile  and  the  stronger  of  the  two." 

"So  delicately  built,"  murmured  Frau  Hadebusch,  in  a  tone  of 
disapproval,  "as  delicate  as  the  stem  of  a  plant." 

When  Daniel  at  last  realised  that  he  was  not  dreaming,  that 
these  were  in  bitter  truth  Philippina's  glistening  eyes  and  Frau 
Hadebusch's  goatish  tooth  and  Dr.  Dingol finger's  silvery  beard, 
and  that  these  were  actual  words  that  were  being  spoken  to  him, 
he  fell  over  and  became  unconscious. 


ELEANORE  321 

xx 

Pain,  grief,  despair,  such   terms  do  not  describe  his  condition. 

He  knew  nothing  about  himself;  he  had  no  thoughts;  he  lay 
on  the  sofa  in  the  living  room  day  and  night,  ate  nothing,  said 
nothing,  and  never  moved. 

When  they  carried  the  empty  coffin  into  the  death  chamber, 
he  burrowed  his  face  into  the  corner  of  the  sofa.  Old  Jordan 
tottered  through  the  room  to  take  a  last  look  at  his  dead  daughter. 
"He  has  sinned,"  Jordan  sobbed,  "sinned  against  God  in  Heaven." 

In  the  hall  some  people  were  whispering.  Martha  Riibsam  and 
her  husband  had  come  in.  Martha  was  crying.  Her  slender 
figure  with  her  pale  face  appeared  in  the  doorway;  she  looked 
around  for  Daniel. 

"Don't  you  want  to  see  your  Eleanore  before  the  coffin  is 
closed?"  asked  Philippina  in  a  hollow  voice. 

He  never  moved;  the  twitchings  of  his  face  were  terrible  to 
behold. 

Beside  him  on  the  table  was  some  cold  food;  also  some  bread 
and  apples. 

They  carried  the  coffin  out.  He  felt  that  where  his  heart  once 
was  there  was  now  a  dark,  empty  space.  The  church  bell  rang, 
the  rain  splashed  against  the  window  panes. 

During  the  second  night  he  felt  his  soul  suddenly  become 
incoherent,  lax.  This  was  followed  by  a  brief  flaring  up  within 
him,  whereupon  his  eyes  were  filled  with  hot,  burning  tears. 
He  resigned  himself  to  the  situation  without  audible  display  of 
grief;  he  felt  all  of  a  sudden  that  he  had  now  for  the  first  time 
in  his  life  really  sensed  the  beauty  of  the  pure  triad  in  the 
major  key. 

Another  day  passed  by.  He  could  hear  old  Jordan  walking  about 
in  the  room  above  him,  ceaselessly  and  with  heavy  tread.  He  felt 
cold;  Philippina  came  in;  he  asked  her  to  get  him  a  blanket. 
Philippina  was  most  eager  to  be  of  service  to  him.  The  door 
bell  rang;  Philippina  opened. 

Before  her  stood  a  lady  and  a  gentleman.  There  was  some- 
thing so  refined  about  them  that  Philippina  did  not  dare  raise  any 
objections  when  they  quietly  came  in  and  went  straight  to  the 
living  room:  the  door  had  not  been  closed,  and  they  could  see 
Daniel  lying  on  the  sofa. 

Daniel  looked  at  them  quite  indifferently.  Gradually  he  began 
to  collect  his  thoughts,  to  compose  himself,  to  come  to  himself. 


322  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

His  guests  were  Eberhard  von  Auffenberg  and  his  cousin,  Sylvia 
von  Erfft.  They  were  betrothed. 

Taken  up  as  he  had  latterly  been  with  the  marked  changes  and 
transformations  in  his  life,  Eberhard  had  not  heard  of  the  death 
of  Eleanore  until  a  few  hours  ago. 

It  was  a  rare  visit.  None  of  the  three  said  a  word.  Daniel 
lay  wrapped  in  his  blanket;  he  never  moved.  Finally,  when  his 
friends  were  about  to  leave,  Sylvia  got  up,  and  turning  to  Daniel, 
said:  "I  did  not  know  Eleanore,  but  I  feel  as  if  I  had  lost  one  of 
my  own  dear  friends." 

Eberhard  tossed  his  chin  in  the  air,  turned  pale,  and  was  as 
silent  as  the  tomb. 

They  repeated  their  visit  on  the  following  day,  and  then  on 
the  next  day,  and  so  on.  The  presence  of  the  two  people  came 
in  time  to  have  a  beneficent  effect  on  Daniel. 


THE  ROOM  WITH  THE  WITHERED  FLOWERS 


A  FEW  days  later,  Herr  Carovius  carried  out  the  scheme  he 
had  decided  upon  at  the  time  his  heart  became  so  embittered  at 
Eleanore's  marriage. 

It  was  the  end  of  March.  Herr  Carovius  had  learned  that  the 
old  Baron  had  just  returned  from  Berlin.  He  went  around  to 
his  house,  and  sent  in  his  card.  The  butler  came  out,  and  told 
him  that  the  Baron  could  receive  no  one,  that  he  should  state  his 
business  in  writing. 

Herr  Carovius,  however,  wanted  to  see  his  debtor  face  to  face: 
this  was  the  heart  of  his  dream.  When  he  came  back  a  second 
time  and  was  again  told  that  he  could  not  see  the  Baron,  he  began 
to  storm  and  bluster,  and  insisted  that  they  should  at  least  let 
him  talk  with  the  Baroness. 

The  Baroness  was  just  then  taking  her  music  lesson.  The  fifteen- 
year-old  Dorothea  Doderlein,  who  gave  promise  of  developing 
into  a  remarkable  virtuoso  on  the  violin,  was  playing  some  sonatas 
with  the  Baroness. 

Andreas  Doderlein  had  recognised  her  talents  when  she  was  a 
mere  child.  Since  her  tenth  year,  she  had  been  obliged  to  practise 
six  hours  every  day.  She  had  had  a  great  number  of  different 
teachers,  all  of  whom  had  been  brought  to  the  point  of  despair 
by  her  intractability.  In  the  presence  of  her  father,  however, 
she  was  meek:  to  him  she  bowed. 

Andreas  Doderlein  had  recommended  his  daughter  to  the 
Baroness  in  words  replete  with  objective  recognition.  The 
Baroness  declared  her  willingness  to  play  with  Dorothea.  Andreas 
Doderlein  had  said  to  her:  "Now  you  have  a  chance  to  rise  in  the 
world  through  powerful  influence;  don't  neglect  it!  The  Baroness 
loves  the  emotional;  be  emotional.  At  times  she  will  demand  the 
demoniac;  be  obedient.  Like  all  rich  people,  she  is  pampering 
some  grief  de.  luxe;  don't  disturb  her!" 

Dorothea  was  docile. 

They  were  playing  Beethoven's  spring  sonatas,  when  the  alter- 
cation began  out  in  the  vestibule.  The  maid  came  in  and  whis- 

323 


324  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

pered  something  to  her  mistress.  The  Baroness  arose  and  went  to 
the  door.  Dorothea  laid  her  violin  in  her  lap,  and  looked  around 
in  affected  astonishment,  as  though  she  were  coming  out  of  a 
dream. 

At  a  sign  from  the  Baroness  the  old  servant  gave  Herr  Carovius 
a  free  path.  He  went  in:  his  face  was  red;  he  made  a  quite 
ridiculous  bow.  His  eyes  drank  in  the  velvet  portieres,  the  cut 
glass  mirrors,  the  crystal  vases,  and  the  bronze  statuettes.  In  the 
meantime,  and  without  fail,  he  had  placed  his  right  hand  against 
his  hip,  giving  the  fine  effect  of  right  akimbo,  and  set  one  foot 
very  elegantly  a  trifle  more  to  the  fore  than  the  other:  he  looked 
like  a  provincial  dancing-master. 

He  complained  of  the  presumptuousness  of  the  servants,  and 
assured  the  Baroness  that  she  was  in  complete  enjoyment  of  his 
deference.  He  spoke  of  his  good  intentions  and  the  pressure  of 
circumstances.  When  the  impatient  bearing  of  his  sole  but  dis- 
tinguished auditor  at  last  obliged  him  to  come  to  the  real  purpose 
of  his  visit,  the  Baroness  twitched;  for  from  his  flood  of  words 
there  emerged,  as  she  heard  them,  nothing  but  the  name  of  her  son. 

With  panting  sounds  she  came  up  to  Herr  Carovius,  and  took 
him  by  the  coat-sleeve.  Her  dim,  black  eyes  became  as  round  as 
little  bullets;  the  supplicating  expression  in  them  was  so  much 
balm  to  the  soul  of  her  visitor. 

Herr  Carovius  was  enchanted;  he  was  having  the  time  of  a 
scurvy  life;  he  became  impudent;  he  wanted  to  take  vengeance  on 
the  mother  against  the  son.  He  saw  that  the  Baroness  did  not 
correspond  to  the  picture  he  had  made  of  a  creature  who  belonged 
to  the  aristocracy.  In  his  imagination  she  had  lived  as  a  domineer- 
ing, imperious,  inaccessible  phenomenon:  and  now  there  stood 
before  him  an  old,  obese,  worried  woman.  On  this  account  he  gave 
his  voice  a  shriller  tone,  his  face  a  more  scurrilous  expression  than 
was  his  wont.  Then  he  launched  forth  on  a  graphic  narration  of 
the  unhappy  plight  in  which  he  now  found  himself  as  a  result 
of  his  association  with  Baron  von  Eberhard,  Jr. 

He  claimed  that  it  was  nothing  but  his  own  good  nature  that 
had  got  him  into  this  trouble.  And  yet,  what  was  he  to  do? 
The  Baron  would  have  starved  to  death,  or  become  morally  de- 
praved, if  he  had  not  come  to  his  spiritual  and  pecuniary  rescue, 
for  the  young  man  was  sadly  wanting  in  the  powers  of  moral 
resistance.  And  what  had  he  gained  by  all  this  altruism?  Ingrati- 
tude, bitter  ingratitude! 

"He  plundered  me;  he  took  my  last  cent,  and  then  acted  as  if 


THE  ROOM  WITH  WITHERED  FLOWERS      325 

it  were  my  damned  duty  to  go  through  fire  for  his  baronical 
excellency,"  screamed  Herr  Carovius.  "Before  I  came  to  know 
him  I  was  a  well-to-do  man;  I  could  enjoy  myself;  I  could  reap 
the  higher  pleasures  of  human  existence.  To-day  I  am  ruined. 
My  money  is  wasted,  my  house  is  burdened  with  mortgages,  my 
peace  of  mind  has  gone  plumb  to  thi  Devil.  Two  hundred  and 
seventy-six  thousand  marks  is  what  the  young  man  owes  me  and 
my  business  friends.  Yes — two  hundred  and  seventy-six  thousand 
marks,  including  interest  and  interest  on  the  interest,  all  neatly 
noted  down  and  signed  up  by  the  duly  authorised  parties.  Am  I 
to  let  him  slam  the  door  in  my  face  because  of  his  indebtedness 
to  me?  I  think  you  will  see  yourself  that  that  cannot  be  expected 
of  me.  He  at  least  owes  me  a  little  respect  for  what  I  have 
done  for  him." 

The  Baroness  had  listened  to  all  this  with  folded  hands  and 
unfixed  eyes.  But  the  close  of  the  story  was  too  much  for  her: 
she  threw  herself  on  a  great  divan,  overcome — for  the  time  being — • 
with  worry  and  maternal  weakness.  A  grin  strayed  across  Herr 
Carovius's  face.  He  twirled  his  Calabrian  headpiece  in  his  hands, 
and  let  his  leery  eyes  wander  about  the  walls.  Then  it  was  that 
he  caught  sight  of  Dorothea,  whom  he  had  thus  far  failed  to  see 
in  his  intoxication  of  wrath  and  rapture. 

When  Herr  Carovius  entered,  Dorothea,  out  of  discretion  rather 
than  with  serious  intent,  had  made  herself  as  small  as  possible  in 
the  most  remote  corner  of  the  room.  Trembling  with  curious 
excitement,  she  had  wished  to  evade  the  eye  of  her  uncle  Carovius, 
for  in  very  truth  she  was  ashamed  of  him. 

She  regarded  him  as  a  sort  of  comic  freak,  who,  though  he  had 
enough  to  live  on,  could  not  be- said  to  be  in  the  best  of  circum- 
stances. When  he  rolled  the  sum  the  Auffenberg  family  owed 
him  from  his  tongue,  she  was  filled  with  astonishment  and  delight, 
and  from  then  on  she  took  a  totally  different  view  of  him. 

During  the  last  few  years  Herr  Carovius  had  seen  very  little  of 
Dorothea.  Whenever  he  had  met  her,  she  had  passed  by  him  in 
great  haste.  He  knew  that  she  was  taking  violin  lessons:  he  had 
often  heard  her  screechy  fiddling  on  the  stairs  and  out  in  the  hall. 

He  fixed  his  eyes  on  her,  and  exclaimed:  "Well  I'm  a  oon-of-a- 
gun  if  there  isn't  Doderlein's  daughter!  How  did  you  get  here? 
Aha,  you  are  going  about  and  showing  the  people  what  you  can 
do!  I  should  think  you  and  your  creator  would  have  had  enough 
of  music  by  this  time." 

The  Baroness,  recalling  that  the  young  girl  was  present,  raised 


326  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

her  eyes  and  looked  at  Dorothea  reproachfully.  For  the  first  time 
in  her  life  she  felt  that  the  resources  she  had  managed  to  extract 
from  a  life  of  neglect  were  about  exhausted;  for  the  first  time 
in  her  life  she  felt  a  shudder  at  the  thought  of  her  musical 
stupefactions. 

She  asked  Herr  Carovius  to  have  patience,  adding  that  he  would 
hear  from  her  in  a  few  days — as  soon  as  she  had  talked  the  matter 
over  with  her  husband.  She  nipped  in  the  bud  a  zealous  reply 
he  was  about  to  make,  and  nodded  a  momentary  farewell  to  Doro- 
thea, who  put  her  violin  in  the  case,  took  the  case  in  her  hand, 
curtsied,  and  followed  her  uncle  out  of  the  .room. 

She  remained  at  his  side;  they  went  along  the  street  together. 
Herr  Carovius  turned  to  her  from  time  to  time,  and  made  some 
rancorous  remark.  She  smiled  modestly. 

With  that  began  the  strange  relation  that  existed  between  the 
two  from  then  on. 


It  had  looked  for  some  time  as  though  the  Baron  von  Auffenberg 
had  retired  from  the  political  stage.  In  circles  in  which  he  had 
formerly  been  held  in  unqualified  esteem  he  was  now  regarded  as 
a  fallen  hero. 

His  friends  traced  the  cause  of  his  failure  to  the  incessant  fric- 
tion from  which  the  party  had  suffered;  to  the  widespread  change 
that  was  taking  place  in  the  public  mind;  to  the  ever-increasing 
pressure  from  above  and  the  never-ceasing  fermentation  from 
below;  to  the  feverish  restlessness  that  had  come  over  the  body 
politic,  changing  its  form,  its  ideals,  and  its  convictions;  and  to  the 
more  scrupulous  and  sometimes  reactionary  stand  that  was  being 
taken  on  all  matters  of  national  culture. 

But  this  could  not  explain  the  hard  trace  of  repulsion  and 
aversion  which  the  Baron's  countenance  had  never  before  revealed 
when  in  the  presence  of  men;  it  threw  no  light,  or  at  most  an 
inadquate  light,  on  the  stony  glare,  gloomy  impatience,  and  reti- 
cence which  he  practised  now  even  in  those  circles  and  under 
those  circumstances  in  which  he  had  formerly  been  noted  for  his 
diverting  talents  as  a  conversationalist  and  companion. 

In  his  heart  of  hearts  he  had,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  always  despised 
his  political  constituents,  their  speeches,  their  action,  their  enthusi- 
asm, and  their  indignation.  But  he  had  never  kicked  over  the 
traces,  for  during  the  course  of  a  rather  eventful  life  he  had  made 


THE  ROOM  WITH  WITHERED  FLOWERS      327 

the  discovery  that  contempt  and  an  icy  disposition  are  invaluable 
adjuncts  to  any  one  who  wishes  to  control  men. 

Even  though  he  had  fought  at  the  beginning  of  his  career  with 
all  the  eloquence  and  buoyancy  at  his  command  for  freedom  and 
tolerance,  it  remained  a  fact  that  he  regarded  liberalism  as  nothing 
more  than  a  newspaper  term,  a  means  of  keeping  men  busy  who 
were  too  indolent  to  think  for  themselves,  and  a  source  of  obstruc- 
tive annoyance  to  the  openly  hated  but  secretly  admired  Bismarck. 

He  had  wielded  a  power  in  full  consciousness  of  the  lie  he  was 
acting,  and  had  done  it  solely  by  gestures,  calculations,  and  political 
adroitness.  This  will  do  for  a  while,  but  in  time  it  eats  into  the 
marrow  of  one's  life. 

In  his  eyes  nothing  was  of  value  except  the  law,  unwritten  to 
be  sure,  but  of  immemorial  duration,  that  subjects  the  little  to  the 
big,  the  weak  to  the  strong,  the  immature  to  the  experienced,  the 
poor  to  the  rich.  In  accordance  with  this  law  humanity  for  him 
was  divided  into  two  camps:  those  who  submitted  to  the  law,  and 
the  undesirable  citizens  who  rebelled  against  the  law. 

And  of  these  undesirable  citizens  his  son  Eberhard  was  the  most 
undesirable. 

With  this  stinging,  painful  thorn  in  his  flesh,  oppressed  by  the 
feeling  of  loneliness  in  the  very  midst  of  a  noisy,  fraudulent 
activity,  and  filled  with  an  ever-increasing  detestation  of  the  super- 
fluity and  consequent  effeminacy  of  his  daily  existence,  he  had 
created  out  of  the  figure  of  his  son  a  picture  of  evil  incarnate. 

He  visualised  him  in  dissipation  and  depravity  of  every  kind 
and  degree;  he  saw  him  sinking  lower  and  lower,  a  traitor  to  his 
family  name;  as  if  in  a  dream  that  appeases  the  sense  of  obscene 
horror,  he  saw  him  in  league  with  the  abandoned  and  proscribed, 
associating  with  thieves,  street  bandits,  high-flying  swindlers,  count- 
erfeiters, anarchists,  prostitutes,  and  literati.  He  saw  him  in  dirty 
dives,  a  fugitive  from  justice  wandering  along  the  highway,  drunk 
in  a  gambling  den,  a  beggar  at  a  fair,  and  a  prisoner  at  the  bar. 

His  determination  to  wait  until  the  degenerate  representative  of 
the  human  family  had  been  stigmatised  by  all  the  world  he  finally 
abandoned.  His  impatience  to  find  peace,  to  throw  off"  the  mask, 
to  rid  himself  completely  of  all  entangements,  dissimulation,  and 
the  life  of  luxury  to  which  he  had  been  accustomed  became  so 
great,  that  he  looked  forward  to  the  day  that  would  eventually 
mark  his  release  as  the  day  of  a  new  birth. 

But  why  did  he  hesitate?  Was  there  still  an  element  of  doubt 
in  his  breast?  Was  there  still  slumbering,  deep  down  In  the 


328  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

regions  of  his  heart  that  were  inaccessible  to  bitterness  and  revenge, 
another  picture  of  his  son?  Why  did  he  hesitate  from  week  to 
week,  from  month  to  month? 

In  the  meantime  he  had  donated  great  fortunes  to  poor  houses, 
hospitals,  foundations,  and  similar  causes.  He  wanted  to  give  away 
other  millions,  at  least  so  much  that  his  heirs  would  receive  only 
the  gleanings  of  what  had  once  been  a  field  of  riches.  Emilia 
was  to  be  given  the  income  from  the  breweries  and  the  country 
estates. 

To  this  extent  he  had  firmly  made  up  his  mind.  Now  that  his 
wife  had  told  him  of  the  actual  condition  in  which  Eberhard 
found  himself,  he  felt  justified  in  going  ahead  and  carrying  out 
his  pre-determined  plans.  The  proofs  of  dishonourable  conduct 
on  the  part  of  his  son  could  now  be  brought  forward.  The  debts 
he  had  contracted,  either  through  flippancy  or  downright  deception, 
in  the  name  of  his  father  were  sufficient  to  condemn  him  forever. 
And  if  not,  then  let  them  fight  it  out  after  he  was  dead  and  gone; 
let  his  last  will  and  testament  be  a  ghost,  a  spectre  that  would  strike 
terror  into  their  hearts  and  embitter  such  pleasure  as  they  might 
otherwise  derive  from  life. 

His  will  had  been  drawn  up  seven  years  ago;  all  that  was  needed 
was  the  signature  of  the  notary  public. 

But  why  did  the  Baron  hesitate?  Why  did  he  pace  back  and 
forth  in  his  room  with  pinched  lips?  Why  did  he  ring  for  the 
butler  with  the  idea  of  sending  this  functionary  for  the  notary, 
and  then  suddenly  change  his  mind  and  give  the  butler  something 
else  to  do? 

"Defeche-toi,  mon  bon  garfon,"  screeched  the  parrot. 

in 

In  the  course  of  three  days  the  Baroness  had  five  talks  with 
her  husband.  Each  .time  he  rejected  her  petition  to  have  the 
affairs  of  their  son  straightened  out;  and  when  she  became  insistent 
and  seemed  minded  to  keep  up  her  fight,  he  became  silent,  speech- 
less. 

It  was  during  her  last  attempt  that  the  servants  heard  her  speak- 
ing with  extraordinary  passion  and  violence.  When  she  left  the 
Baron's  room  her  whole  body  was  quivering  with  emotion  and 
excitement.  She  came  out,  and  ordered  the  house  servants  to  pack 
her  trunk  and  her  coachman  tr>  be  ready  to  leave  in  a  few 
minutes. 


THE  ROOM  WITH  WITHERED  FLOWERS      329 

An  hour  later  she  was  on  her  way  to  the  estate  at  Siegmundshof, 
about  ten  miles  from  the  baronial  residence.  Her  maid  accom- 
panied her.  But  she  was  utterly  unable  to  find  peace  there.  Dur- 
ing the  day  she  would  pace  back  and  forth  through  the  rooms, 
crying  and  wringing  her  hands;  at  night  she  would  lie  down,  but  not 
to  sleep.  On  the  fourth  day  she  returned  to  the  city,  had  the 
carriage  driven  to  the  residence  of  Count  Urlich,  and  sent  her 
coachman  in  to  get  the  Countess.  Emilia  came  down,  terrified,  to 
know  what  her  mother  wanted.  The  Baroness  told  her  that  she 
wished  her  to  accompany  her  to  Herr  Carovius,  whose  address 
she  had  found  in  the  city  directory. 

Herr  Carovius  had  waited  in  vain  for  the  news  the  Baroness 
had  promised  him.  His  anger  got  the  best  of  him:  he  decided  to 
make  an  example  of  the  Auffenberg  family,  and,  with  this  end  in 
view,  entered  their  house  as  the  personal  embodiment  of  punitive 
justice.  When  he  was  told  that  he  could  not  be  admitted,  he 
began  once  more  to  start  trouble;  h'e  raged  and  stormed  like  a 
madman.  The  servants  came  running  out  from  all  quarters; 
finally  a  policeman  appeared  on  the  scene  and  questioned  him. 
The  porter  then  dragged  him  from  the  house  and  out  through  the 
big  gate  at  the  entrance  to  the  grounds,  where  he  stood  surrounded 
by  a  crowd  of  curious  but  not  entirely  disinterested  people,  bare- 
headed, waving  his  arms  and  striking  an  imaginary  adversary  with 
his  fists — a  picture,  all  told,  of  anger  intensified  to  the  point  of 
insanity. 

His  backers  at  once  got  wind  of  his  fruitless  attempts  to  collect. 
They  became  uneasy,  gave  Herr  Carovius  himself  a  deal  of  trouble, 
and  finally  appointed  a  lawyer  to  take  charge  of  the  case.  In  the 
meantime  Herr  Carovius  had  learned  through  a  spy  that  it  had 
come  to  a  complete  break  between  the  Baron  and  the  Baroness, 
that  the  latter  had  left  within  two  days  with  bag  and  baggage, 
and  that  great  consternation  prevailed  among  the  servants  and 
friends  of  the  family. 

A  voluptuous  light  crept  across  Herr  Carovius's  face:  here  was 
defeat  and  despair,  weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth;  what  more 
could  he  wish?  He  felt  that  he  was  personally  the  annihilator 
of  the  collective  aristocracy.  And  if  it  is  possible  to  take  a  fiendish 
delight  in  witnessing  the  destruction  of  what  one  after  all  despises, 
how  much  greater  may  this  joy  be  when  the  thing  destroyed  is 
something  one  loves  and  admires! 

It  was  while  in  this  mood  that  the  Baroness  and  her  daughter 
came  to  sec  him.  The  sight  of  the  two  women  left  him  momcn- 


330  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

tarily  speechless.  He  forgot  to  say  good-day  to  them;  to  ask 
them  in  i  ever  once  occurred  to  him. 

The  Baroness  wanted  to  know  where  Eberhard  was:  she  was 
determined  to  see  him.  When  Herr  Carovius  stuttered  out  the 
astounding  information  to  her  that  he  was  living  hardly  more 
than  three  hundred  paces  from  where  she  was  then  standing,  she 
began  to  tremble  and  leaned  against  the  wall.  She  was  not  pre- 
pared for  this:  she  had  always  imagined  that  he  was  staying  at 
some  mysterious  place  in  some  mysterious  distance. 

Herr  Carovius  at  once  insisted  that  he  accompany  the  ladies  to 
the  Baron's  diminutive  residence.  But  the  Baroness  felt  that  she 
was  not  capable  of  this:  she  feared  it  would  mean  her  death. 
"Take  me  home  with  you,  Emilia,"  she  said  to  her  daughter,  "and 
you  go  over  and  have  a  talk  with  Eberhard  first." 

But  Emilia  had  not  seen  Eberhard  once  during  the  nine  years 
of  her  married  life,  and  was  even  less  inclined  than  her  mother 
to  meet  him  now.  Nor  was  it  possible  to  take  the  Baroness  to  her 
home.  The  old  lady  had  evidently  forgotten  that  she  had  told 
Count  Urlich  never  to  show  his  face  in  her  presence  again.  The 
occasion  of  this  inexorable  request  was  the  time  she  learned  that 
the  governess  of  his  child  was  in  a  family  way  and  that  he  war 
responsible  for  her  disgrace. 

Since  the  Baroness  stoutly  refused  to  return  either  to  her  town 
residence  or  to  Siegmundshof,  there  was  nothing  for  Emilia  to  do 
but  to  take  her  to  a  hotel.  Herr  Carovius,  who  had  accompanied 
the  two  women  on  the  street  and  had  enjoyed  to  the  full  their 
pitiable  distress,  suggested  that  they  go  to  the  Bavarian  Court.  He 
climbed  up  on  the  seat  by  the  coachman,  told  him  how  to  get 
there,  and  looked  down  in  regal  triumph  on  the  pedestrians. 

Countess  Emilia,  quite  at  her  wits'  end,  sent  a  telegram  to  her 
Aunt  Agatha.  The  next  Wednesday  Frau  von  Erfft  with  her 
daughter  Sylvia  arrived.  "Clotilda  acts  as  if  she  had  lost  her 
mind,"  she  said  to  Emilia  after  having  spent  an  hour  in  the  room 
with  her  sister.  "I  am  going  to  see  your  father.  I  must  have  a 
long  talk  with  Siegmund." 

The  Baron  received  his  sister-in-law  with  marked  coolness, 
though  he  had  always  had  a  great  deal  of  respect  for  her. 

Frau  von  Erfft  was  quite  careful  to  avoid  any  reference  to  the 
family  affairs.  She  talked  about  Sylvia,  remarking  that  she  was 
now  twenty-seven  years  old,  and  that  she  had  rejected  all  her 
tuitors,  a  fact  which  was  causing  her  parents  a  measure  of  concern. 
"She  simply  will  not  be  contented,"  said  Frau  Agatha.  "She  is 


THE  ROOM  WITH  WITHERED  FLOWERS      331 

bent  on  securing  a  special  mission  in  her  marriage,  and  fears  nothing 
so  much  as  the  loss  of  her  personal  liberty.  T^hat  is  the  way  our 
childer  are,  dear  Siegmundj  and  if  we  had  brought  them  into 
the  world  differently,  they  would  be  different.  In  our  day  the 
ideal  was  obedience;  but  now  children  have  discovered  the  duty 
they  owe  themselves." 

"Then  they  should  look  out  for  themselves,"  replied  the  Baron 
gloomily.  He  had  fully  appreciated  what  his  sister-in-law  was  driv- 
ing at. 

From  the  confused  and  incoherent  remarks  of  her  sister,  Agatha 
had  learned  what  had  taken  place  between  the  Baron  and  the 
Baroness.  She  was  familiar  with  the  painful  past;  and  when  she 
looked  into  the  old  Baron's  eyes,  she  saw  what  was  necessary.  She 
made  up  her  mind  then  and  there  to  have  Eberhard  meet  his 
mother. 

She  wished  above  everything  else  to  quiet  Clotilda  and  persuade 
her  to  return  home.  The  task,  owing  to  the  weakness  and  in- 
stability of  the  Baroness,  was  not  difficult.  Sylvia  remained  with 
her  aunt,  and  her  quiet,  resolute  disposition  had  a  wholesome  effect 
upon  her.  In  the  meantime  Agatha  had  got  Eberhard's  address. 
After  some  search  she  found  the  house:  Eberhard  was  at  home. 


rv 

The  first  talk  she  had  with  him  passed  off  without  results  of 
any  kind.  He  evaded  her  courageous  remarks,  and  failed  to  hear 
what  he  did  not  care  to  hear.  He  was  stiff,  polite,  and  annoyingly 
listless.  Agatha,  full  of  vexation,  told  her  daughter  of  her  dis- 
appointment. Sylvia  said  she  would  like  to  go  with  her  mother  the 
next  time  she  visited  Eberhard.  Agatha  shook  her  head,  though 
she  was  in  no  way  minded  to  abandon  her  purpose. 

There  was  no  change  at  the  Baron's  house.  Baroness  Clotilda 
was  in  a  perpetual  state  of  nervous  excitement  that  was  anything 
but  reassuring  either  to  herself  or  those  about  her.  The  Baron 
was  a  disquieting  riddle  to  the  entire  household:  he  never  left  his 
room;  he  paced  up  and  down  hours  at  a  time,  with  his  hands  folded 
across  his  back. 

Agatha  called  on  her  nephew  a  second,  a  third,  a  fourth  time. 
Even  though  Eberhard's  Arctic  impenetrability  seemed  made  for  all 
time,  though  yielding  seemed  to  be  no  part  of  his  nature,  she 
finally  succeeded  in  jolting  him  loose  from  his  bearings.  And 
when  Sylvia  accompanied  her  mother — Sylvia  generally  won  her 


332  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

point  with  her  mother — he  shook  off  his  armour  with  unexpected 
suddenness;  you  could  see  the  struggles  that  were  going  on  in 
his  soul. 

Falteringly,  and  in  the  affected  and  finical  tone  he  not  infre- 
quently adopted,  he  told  the  story  of  his  youth,  commenting  on  the 
everlasting  discord  between  his  father  and  his  mother  and  the 
disagreeable  quarrels  that  used  to  take  place  at  home.  He  said 
that  just  as  soon  as  his  mother  would  ask  that  something  be  done, 
his  father  would  demand  the  opposite.  The  children  soon  saw 
that  father  was  going  his  way  and  mother  hers;  they  were  not 
unaware  of  the  fact  that  their  parents  cordially  distrusted  each  other 
and  even  went  so  far  as  to  lay  traps  for  each  other.  He  insisted 
that  his  mother,  with  all  her  amiability  and  gentleness,  was  obsessed 
with  the  idea  of  teasing,  annoying,  and  wounding  his  father  on 
that  very  point  where  she  had  already  and  so  often  teased,  annoyed, 
and  wounded  him  before;  and  that  this  lack  of  reason  and  con- 
sideration on  her  part,  coupled  with  the  absence  of  kindness  and 
candour  on  his,  had  made  the  paternal  home  a  hell,  torn  at  the 
hearts  of  the  growing  children,  and  in  time  so  hardened  them 
that  they  suspected  every  friendly  face  they  saw,  and  withdrew, 
as  if  so  from  something  vile,  from  every  hand  that  was  reached 
out  to  them.  He  related  further  that  in  this  loveless  wilderness 
brother  and  sister  had  been  drawn  to  each  other,  that  in  Emilia's 
heart,  and  his  own  as  well,  this  mutual  friendship  was  cherished 
as  a  sacred,  inviolable  possession,  so  sacred  that  it  impelled  them 
in  time  to  establish  a  league  against  all  the  rest  of  the  world.  How 
did  they  conduct  themselves  once  this  league  had  been  founded? 
If  they  read  a  book  it  was  in  common ;  they  kept  no  secrets  from 
each  other,  advised  each  other,  and  shared  their  happiness  and 
sorrow  equally,  until  one  fine  day  Emilia's  father  appeared  before 
her,  and  informed  her  that  Count  Ulrich  had  asked  for  her  hand 
and  that  he  had  promised  that  he  should  have  it. 

At  this  point  in  the  story,  Eberhard  became  silent;  he  bit  his 
lips;  his  ashen  face,  that  had  never  before  reminded  Agatha  so 
much  of  the  old  Baron,  betrayed  an  incurable  grief. 

Agatha  was  familiar  with  this  incident,  in  rough  outline;  but 
as  Eberhard  related  it,  it  stirred  her  soul  to  the  very  depths.  "One 
must  try  to  forget,"  she  said. 

"Forget?  No,  that  I  cannot  do;  never  have  been  able  to  do. 
Be  it  a  matter  of  virtue  or  of  vice,  I  cannot  forget.  Emilia,  then 
still  half  child  and  only  half  woman,  was  made  flexible  in  time. 
But  that  my  mother  did  not  do  everything  in  her  power  to  prevent 


THE  ROOM  WITH  WITHERED  FLOWERS      333 

this  gruesome  deed,  and  that  it  caused  her  to  sink  deeper  and 
deeper  into  the  coils  of  domestic  anguish  by  reason  of  her  innate 
and  gnawing  weakness — that  was  the  bitterest  experience  of  my 
entire  life." 

"But  she  is  your  mother,  Eberhard.  Never  in  the  history  of  the 
human  family  has  a  son  had  the  right  to  condemn  his  mother." 

"That  is  news  to  me,"  replied  Eberhard  coldly.  "Mothers  are 
human  beings  like  any  one  else.  Even  mothers  can  commit  a  sin 
by  filling  their  children  with  the  poison  of  distrust  and  disgust 
with  life.  Father  and  mother,  parents:  they  are  a  symbol,  a 
glorious  one  when  they  hover  above  us  and  around  us,  worthy  of 
respect  and  calling  for  filial  veneration.  But  if  I  am  bound  to 
them  only  by  the  ties  of  duty,  they  are  not  symbols;  they  are  mere 
phantoms,  conceptions  of  human  speech.  There  is  no  duty  but  the 
duty  of  love." 

Sylvia  had  sat  in  perfect  silence.  Unconsciously  she  had  fol- 
lowed the  most  beautiful  law  of  harmonious  souls:  to  wield  an 
influence,  to  have  power,  not  through  the  use  of  words  and  the 
elaboration  of  reasons,  but  by  a  pure  life,  an  unquestioned  existence. 
Agreement  and  disagreement  lay  like  a  play  of  light  and  shadow  on 
her  brow. 

In  this  way  she  reminded  Eberhard  more  and  more  of  Eleanore. 

Perhaps  it  was  the  power  of  this  memory  that  moved  him  to 
promise  that  he  would  go  with  Agatha  on  the  following  day  to 
his  mother.  The  sole  condition  he  imposed  was  that  he  be  assured 
that  he  would  not  meet  his  father. 

Seeing  that  he  was  relentless  in  this  request,  Frau  von  Erfft 
conceded  it,  though  she  had  a  reassuring  premonition  that  the  events 
and  the  hour  would  be  stronger  than  will  and  purpose. 


On  entering  his  mother's  boudoir,  Eberhard's  eyes  fell  at  once 
on  the  alabaster  clock,  the  face  of  which  was  supported  by  three 
figures  representing  the  daughters  of  time.  In  his  childhood  days 
the  clock  had  always  had  a  highly  poetic  meaning  to  him:  it 
seemed  to  symbolise  the  fulfilment  of  his  most  ardent  wishes. 

The  Baroness  had  been  prepared  for  his  coming  by  her  sister. 
While  Eberhard  and  Sylvia  had  been  standing  in  the  corner  room 
waiting,  a  fe%v  of  the  servants  had  gathered  at  the  door,  where 
they  whispered  to  each  other  timidly. 

Eberhard   went   up   to  his   mother   and   kissed   her   hand.     The 


334  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

Baroness's  face  was  the  colour  of  lead;  her  eyes  were  opened  as 
wide  as  possible,  and  yet  she  seemed  hardly  conscious.  Emilia 
stood  at  one  side;  her  hands  were  pressed  to  her  bosom,  her  fingers 
were  twitching  convulsively. 

Frau  Agatha  endeavoured  to  relieve  the  situation  of  its  solem- 
nity and  unnaturalness  by  making  a  few  humorous  remarks  about 
Eberhard's  hiding  place  on  the  hill  by  the  Castle.  Baroness 
Clotilda  looked  at  her  son  in  anxious  and  uneasy  suspense:  "I 
scarcely  recognise  him,"  she  said  with  a  hoarse  voice,  "he  has 
changed  so." 

"You  have  changed,  too,  Mother,"  said  Eberhard,  as  his  chin 
sought  refuge  between  the  lapels  of  his  coat.  He  was  as  stiff  as  a 
poker.  Agatha  looked  at  him  full  of  vexation  and  annoyance. 
He  acted  as  though  he  were  being  bored  by  the  meeting. 

But  it  was  only  a  mask.  As  he  looked  at  the  old,  indistinct, 
tired,  bullied  face,  he  became  conscious  of  his  mistake:  he  felt 
that  he  was  wrong  in  saying  that  "Mothers  are  also  human  beings." 
He  saw  at  once  that  amends  had  to  be  made,  that  action  was  neces- 
sary; he  felt  that  his  next  step  would  lead  to  inevitable  self- 
contempt  if  he  neglected  the  moral  deed  of  repentance. 

As  he  struggled  with  himself  and  stared,  as  if  paralysed,  into  the 
rebellion  of  his  own  soul,  a  certain  pair  of  eyes  had  forced  their 
way  behind  the  seeming  apathy.  A  sudden  blush  came  to  Sylvia's 
cheeks:  she  went  up  to  her  cousin,  and  took  him  by  the  hand.  He 
quivered;  he  saw  at  once  that  she  had  divined  what  was  going  on 
in  his  soul,  and  now  she  was  determined  to  bring  his  fight  to  a 
close,  a  final,  definite  close.  She  took  him  out  of  the  room;  he 
followed  her;  she  led  him  through  the  dining  room,  the  reception 
room,  the  smoking  room,  the  library,  and  on  to  his  father's  room. 
Agatha,  Emilia,  and  the  Baroness  looked  at  each  other  in  amaze- 
ment. They  went  to  the  door  of  the  room,  and  listened  in  breath- 
less suspense. 

Sylvia  opened  the  door  rather  boldly.  The  old  Baron  was 
sitting  on  the  leather  chair  before  the  stove.  His  legs  were  wrapped 
in  a  blanket;  the  expression  on  his  face  was  of  stony  coldness. 

Hardly  had  he  noticed  the  two  when  he  sprang  to  his  feet  as 
if  the  lightning  had  struck  close  by  him.  He  shook;  he  faltered; 
he  groped  about  for  a  physical  support;  and  from  his  throat  there 
came  a  stifled  gurgle.  That  was  all. 

Eberhard  walked  over  to  him,  and  reached  out  his  hand. 

For  a  moment  it  seemed  as  if  the  old  man  would  collapse.  A 
last  flash  of  hatred  and  revenge  shot  from  his  blue  eyes;  then  he 


THE  ROOM  WITH  WITHERED  FLOWERS      335 

too  reached  out  his  hand.  His  arm  trembled;  thick  knots  of 
quivering  muscles  formed  on  his  cheeks.  Sylvia  had  gently  closed 
the  door  and  vanished. 

Anxious  minutes  passed  by  and  nothing  happened,  except  that 
each  held  the  hand  of  the  other  and  each  looked  into  the  eyes 
of  the  other.  The  silence  was  broken  only  by  the  crackling  of 
the  fire  in  the  stove. 

"Just  at  the  right  time,"  murmured  the  old  Baron,  without 
looking  up  and  as  if  lost  in  meditation,  "just  at  the  right  time." 

Eberhard  made  no  reply.  He  stood  as  still,  as  motionless,  as 
silent,  and  with  his  heels  as  close  together  as  if  he  were  a  young 
officer  facing  his  superior  in  command. 

After  a  while  he  wheeled  about  and  slowly  left  the  room. 

Sylvia  was  waiting  in  the  library.  In  the  twilight  it  was  pos- 
sible to  see  only  the  vague  outline  of  her  body. 

Eberhard  took  hold  of  her  and  whispered:  "I  really  believe  that 
I  no  longer  have  a  father." 

VI 

That  same  night  the  old  Baron  had  left.  He  got  up  in  the 
middle  of  the  night;  at  four  o'clock  his  valet  accompanied  him  to 
the  station. 

The  next  morning  two  letters  were  found  lying  on  his  writing 
desk:  one  was  addressed  to  Eberhard,  the  other  to  the  Baroness. 
The  latter  contained  nothing  more  than  a  few  words  of  farewell. 
The  former  was  more  detailed.  It  expressed  the  Baron's  satisfac- 
tion at  the  fact  that  Eberhard,  whom  he  welcomed  as  the  head 
of  the  house,  had  returned,  and  plainly  indicated  that  all  the 
necessary  legal  steps  would  be  taken  in  a  very  short  while  to  give 
him  complete  authority  as  his  heir  and  successor.  The  letter  closed 
with  this  surprising  sentence:  "So  far  as  I  am  personally  concerned, 
I  am  planning  to  enter  the  Catholic  Church,  in  order  to  spend  the 
remainder  of  my  misapplied  life  at  Viterbo  in  the  Dominican 
Convent  of  Delia  Guercia." 

There  was  no  explanation,  no  unusual  display  of  feeling,  no 
confession,  nothing  but  the  naked  fact. 

The  Baroness  was  neither  surprised  nor  shocked.  She  fell  into 
a  mute,  melancholy  brooding,  and  then  said:  "He  never  was  happy, 
never  in  his  whole  life.  I  never  heard  him  laugh  a  really  whole- 
souled  laugh;  and  living  with  him  has  made  me  forget  how  to 
laugh  myself.  His  heart  has  been  from  time  immemorial  a  sort 


336  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

of  convent,  an  abode  of  darkness,  a  place  of  sternness.  He  has 
found  his  way  home  at  last,  and  is  probably  tired  from  the  long 
journey  on  the  way  to  his  soul." 

"Nonsense,  Clotilda!"  cried  Frau  von  Erfft.  "What  you  say 
about  his  laughing  may  be  true,  and  a  man  who  cannot  laugh  is 
half  animal.  But  do  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  an  intelligent 
man  must  resort  to  such  means  to  find  peace  with  himself  and  his 
God?  A  man  who  is  under  obligations  to  set  an  example  for 
others?  Is  there  not  enough  darkness  in  men's  heads  already? 
Is  it  necessary  to  put  out  the  torches  of  those  who  stand  guard? 
My  sense  of  pardon  is  not  so  elaborate.  I  prefer  to  be  a  child 
of  the  world  and  associate  with  those  who  are  regarded  as  heathens, 
and  who  have  given  us  works  of  light  and  illumination." 

At  these  words  Eberhard  entered.  As  she  looked  into  his  face, 
Frau  von  Erfft  thought:  "There  is  another  who  can't  laugh." 

The  Baron's  change  of  religious  views  caused  the  greatest  excite-* 
ment  throughout  the  entire  country.  The  liberal  newspapers  pub- 
lished fulminatory  articles;  flaming  protests  were  made  in  the  clubs 
against  the  surreptitious  propaganda  of  Rome.  The  ultramontane 
party  leaders  rejoiced  and  made  capital  out  of  the  marvellous 
return  of  such  a  sceptic  to  the  bosom  of  the  Church  which  alone 
can  save  the  souls  of  men:  they  used  the  case  as  a  bait  for  fresh 
recruits  and  as  a  means  to  fill  the  old  regulars  with  greater  fire 
and  enthusiasm.  Through  the  homes  blew  a  breath  of  a  tyrannical 
priesthood  and  spiritual  gagging. 

Eberhard  adapted  himself  to  his  changed  condition  quickly  and 
with  but  little  apparent  effort:  the  chaos  of  opinions  left  him 
virtually  unmoved.  To  become  the  master  of  so  much  and  so 
many  people,  and  to  do  it  so  suddenly,  necessitated  dignity,  a  clear 
eye,  and  a  firm  hand.  His  being  was  in  no  danger  from  an  excess 
of  zeal  or  up-start  conceit,  suffer  though  he  might  from  too  great 
seriousness  and  his  preference  for  a  place  in  the  shadow.  Strangely 
enough,  the  abundance  of  his  responsibilities  made  him  more 
cheerful.  And  where  he  was  unable  to  take  his  part  in  the  world 
of  outward  unrest,  Sylvia's  influence  interceded  and  made  it  pos- 
sible for  him  to  do  what  was  expected  of  him. 

In  May  he  accompanied  her  and  her  mother  to  Erfft.  There 
they  took  long  walks  together  every  day,  and  talked  a  great  deal 
«bout  Eleanore.  At  first  he  spoke  with  noticeable  reserve.  But 
when  he  felt  that  he  had  gained  the  confidence  of  his  auditor, 
and  she  his,  he  spoke  quite  candidly,  so  candidly  in  truth  that 
Sylvia  came  to  look  upon  his  action  as  one  of  inner  liberation.. 


THE  ROOM  WITH  WITHERED  FLOWERS      337 

When  he  told  of  Eleanore's  marriage  to  Daniel  Nothafft,  Sylvia 
interrupted  him,  and  asked  a  number  of  questions  concerning 
Daniel.  "Oh,  yes,  he  was  our  guest  once;  he  is  the  Kapellmeister," 
she  said.  And  then  she  told  him  all  about  Daniel's  visit  at  Erfft, 
and  did  it  with  a  smile  in  which  there  were  both  indulgence  and 
re-awakened  astonishment. 

Her  smile  made  the  same  appeal  to  Eberhard  that  Eleanore's  had. 
And  yet,  when  he  was  in  Sylvia's  company,  he  seemed  to  recognise 
more  distinctly  than  ever  what  had  drawn  him  with  such  irresistible 
power  to  Eleanore,  possibly  because  Sylvia  was  of  a  less  ardent  and 
forceful  nature.  He  could  not  exactly-  express  it  in  words;  he 
merely  felt  that  it  was  the  unknown  realm  of  tones,  the  unknown 
melting  of  melodies,  the  ringing  order  of  the  music  transformed 
into  soul. 

At  the  beginning  of  June,  Sylvia  went  back  to  Nuremberg  with 
Eberhard  and  her  parents.  A  few  days  later  the  betrothal  took 
place  in  the  baronial  residence. 


Herr  Carovius  had  been  paid.  The  consortium  of  silent  backers 
had  been  dissolved. 

Never  in  the  history  of  finance  had  there  been  a  satisfied  creditor 
who  was  so  unhappy  as  Herr  Carovius.  He  was  without  a  goal, 
and  the  sign  posts  had  been  destroyed.  He  had  received  his 
money;  so  far  so  good.  His  share  of  the  profit  was  something 
over  sixty  thousand  marks.  But  what  was  this  in  comparison  with 
the  great  noise?  What  comparison  was  there  between  living  in 
ease  and  the  gorgeous  sight  of  falling  stars?  What  attraction 
could  the  world  offer  him  after  this  hopeful  affair,  which  had 
begun  as  a  tragedy,  and  had  increased  in  interest  and  suspense 
until  one  was  justified  in  believing  that  all  the  contradictory  forces 
in  human  nature  were  going  to  collide  with  one  mighty  bang, 
when,  in  reality,  the  whole  incident  flattened  out  into  an  ordinary 
drama  of  emotion,  with  the  curtain  going  down  on  reconciliation 
all  around? 

But  this  was  not  the  sole  reason  why  Herr  Carovius,  up  until 
this  time  a  most  elastic  figure,  one  of  those  imperturbable  bachelors 
for  whom  no  hurdle  was  too  high,  suddenly  felt  that  he  was 
growing  old.  His  soul  was  filled  with  unrest;  he  was  seeing  bad 
omens;  he  feared  there  was  going  to  be  a  change  in  the  weather. 

He  felt  an   inner  hunger,  and  yet  he  somehow  lacked  appetite 


338  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

for  his  kind  of  things.  "Down  and  out,  lost  and  no  good,"  he 
sighed  within.  But  those  who  had  got  rich  at  his  expense  could 
not  possibly  succeed.  This  much  he  knew. 

He  began  to  lose  his  hair;  he  became  rheumatic.  As  soon  as 
the  thermometer  began  to  fall  he  shivered;  if  it  rained  he  stayed 
at  home.  He  began  to  study  medicine,  all  by  himself.  He  took 
up  the  various  remedies  of  our  remote  ancestors.  He  read  the 
works  of  Paracelsus,  and  declared  that  all  those  who  had  written 
on  medicine  since  Paracelsus  were  quacks  and  poison-mixers. 

His  ideas  with  regard  to  music  became  also  more  and  more 
strange  and  izarre.  He  had  discovered  an  old  Nuremberg  com- 
poser by  the  name  of  Staden.  His  opera  entitled  "Seelewig"— 
the  first  of  all  German  operas,  by  the  way — he  insisted  was  the 
very  zenith  of  musical  art,  eminently  superior  to  Mozart  and  Bach, 
He  played  arias  and  melodies  from  "Seelewig"  to  Dorothea. 

"Now,  when  you  can  get  that,"  he  exclaimed,  "when  you  come 
to  the  point  where  I  can  see  from  your  playing  what  is  in  it  and 
at  the  bottom  of  it,  Heaven  and  Hell  in  one  stroke  of  the  bow, 
then,  you  little  jackanapes,  I'm  going  to  make  you  my  heiress." 

That  was  precisely  what  Dorothea  had  been  longing  to  hear; 
it  confirmed  her  calculations  and  crowned  her  dreams.  To  heat 
these  words  roll  from  her  uncle's  tongue  had  been  her  ambition/ 
and  she  had  spared  no  pains  to  arrive  at  her  goal. 

Herr  Carovius  was  not  spoiled.  Since  the  days  his  sister  had 
kept  house  for  him,  no  woman  had  ever  concerned  herself  about 
him  in  the  least.  But  at  that  time  he  was  young;  and  he  had 
wheedled  himself  into  believing  that  the  women  were  merely 
waiting  for  him,  that  all  he  had  to  do  was  to  beckon  to  them 
with  his  finger  and  they  would  come  rushing  up  to  him  in  bat- 
talions. But  because  he  had  dreaded  the  idea  of  making  an  un- 
happy selection,  and  by  reason  of  the  expense  of  the  enterprise, 
he  had  neglected  to  give  the  necessary  signal,  and  hence  had 
been  so  generous  as  to  leave  them  in  complete  possession  of  their 
freedom. 

He  never  knew  until  now  that  the  soft,  little  hand  of  a  woman 
could  bring  out  effects  as  if  they  had  come  from  the  touch  of  a 
magic  wand.  "What  a  pleasant  little  phiz  Doderlein's  offspring 
has,"  he  thought.  And  if  Dorothea,  who  had  made  him  believe 
that  she  was  visiting  him  on  the  sly,  though  her  father  had  given 
his  consent  long  ago,  chanced  to  remain  away  for  a  few  days,  he 
would  become  wild  with  rage,  and  go  into  the  kitchen  and  chop 
wood  merely  to  enjoy  the  sensation  of  destroying  something. 


THE  ROOM  WITH  WITHERED  FLOWERS      339 

Moreover,  the  music  lessons  Dorothea  was  taking  at  Herr  Caro- 
vius's  expense  gave  the  girl  a  new  conception  of  her  art,  and 
awakened  in  her  a  measure  of  wholesome  ambition.  Satisfied  as 
he  was  with  her  docility  and  her  progress,  Herr  Carovius  referred 
to  her  at  times  as  the  coming  female  Paganini,  and  pictured  himself 
in  the  role  of  a  demoniacal  impresario. 

But  the  thing  about  Dorothea  that  struck  him  most  forcibly  and 
filled  him  with  such  astonishment  was  her  relation  to  mirrors. 

A  mirror  exercised  a  tremendous  influence  on  her.  If  she  passed 
by  one,  her  face  became  coloured  with  a  charming  blush  of  desire; 
if  she  stood  before  one  and  saw  her  picture  reflected  in  it,  she 
was  filled,  first  with  sexual  unrest,  and  then  with  retreating  uncer- 
tainty. In  the  brightness  of  her  eyes  there  was  always  a  longing 
for  the  mirror.  Her  gait  and  her  gestures  seemed  to  have  duties 
imposed  on  them  by  the  mirror;  it  seemed  to  be  their  task  to 
prepare  surprises.  Her  whole  body  seemed  to  live  in  common  with 
a  spectral  mirror  sister,  and  to  catch  sight  of  this  beloved  sister 
was  her  first  wish,  fulfilment  of  which  she  effected  as  often  as 
possible. 

VIII 

Dorothea  had  succeeded  in  making  it  clear  to  her  father  that 
it  would  be  highly  advantageous  to  her,  as  the  nearest  relative,  to 
show  Herr  Carovius  every  conceivable  favour.  Andreas  Doderlein 
baulked  at  first;  but  he  could  not  refuse  recognition  to  the  far-seeing 
penetration  of  his  daughter. 

When  she  told  him  of  her  appearance  in  the  baronial  residence, 
and  mentioned  the  enormous  sum  Herr  Carovius  had  collected 
with  the  mien  of  an  undaunted  victor,  Doderlein  became  serious; 
he  stared  into  space  and  did  some  hard  thinking.  Recalling  the 
now  superannuated  feud,  he  preserved  the  appearance  of  inap- 
proachability,  and  said:  "We  will  not  debase  ourselves  for  the  sake 
of  Mammon." 

A  few  days  later,  however,  he  said,  quite  of  his  own  free  will, 
sighing  like  a  man  who  has  gone  through  some  great  moral  struggle 
and  come  out  of  it  victorious,  "Well,  do  as  you  think  best,  my 
child,  but  don't  let  me  know  anything  about  it." 

His  argument,  had  he  expressed  it  in  so  many  words,  would  have 
been  something  like  the  following:  We  are  poor;  we  are  living 
from  hand  to  mouth.  The  negligible  dowry  Herr  Carovius  gave 
his  sister  has  been  used  up.  Marguerite  would  have  been  perfectly 


340  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

justified  in  putting  in  her  claim  for  thirty  thousand  marks,  but 
Herr  Carovius  settled  with  her  for  only  twelve  thousand,  and 
there  was  no  possibility  of  redress.  For  Herr  Carovius  had 
wheedled  his  sister  into  giving  him  a  written  statement  that  she 
was  satisfied  with  the  sum  of  twelve  thousand:  the  remaining 
eighteen  thousand  was  the  price  he  demanded  in  return  for  her 
consent  to  have  his  sister,  who  was  slavishly  submissive  to  him, 
marry  the  man  of  her  choice. 

"I  have  been  duped,"  said  Andreas  Doderlein,  and  bore  up 
under  his  grudge  with  becoming  dignity. 

The  director  of  the  conservatory  died,  and  Andreas  Doderlein, 
who,  by  virtue  of  his  achievements  and  his  personality,  had  the 
first  right  to  the  vacant  position,  was  appointed  to  it.  His  former 
colleagues  were  stout  in  their  contention  that  the  appointment  cost 
him  many  a  bitter  visit  to  the  powers  that  be.  Doderlein  read  envy 
in  their  eyes  and  smiled  to  himself. 

But  it  was  a  hard  life.  "Art  cannot  live  without  bread,"  said 
Doderlein,  with  a  heroic  glance  into  the  future.  "But  oh,  what 
works  I  could  bring  out  if  I  only  had  time!  Give  me  time,  time, 
and,"  swinging  his  hands  cloudward,  "the  eagles  above  would 
greet  me!" 

IX 

Herr  Carovius  and  death  were  intimate  friends.  Whenever 
death  had  an  errand  to  run,  it  always  knocked  on  Herr'  Carovius's 
door,  as  if  to  find  a  person  who  approved  of  its  deeds  and  who 
had  a  just  appreciation  of  them,  for  there  were  so  many  of  the 
other  kind. 

But  when  Herr  Carovius  heard  that  Eleanore  Nothafft  had  died, 
he  felt  that  his  old  friend  had  gone  a  bit  too  far.  He  was 
touched.  He  was  seized  with  griping  pains  in  the  abdominal 
region,  and  locked  himself  up  for  the  period  of  one  whole  day  in 
his  court  room.  There  he  was  taken  down  with  catalepsy;  his  face 
went  through  a  horrible  transformation:  it  came  to  look  as  if  all 
the  wickedness,  hopelessness,  and  despair  of  the  man  who  had  never 
become  reconciled  to  life  through  love  had  been  concentrated  in  it 
and  petrified. 

His  forebodings  had  come  true. 

Eleanore's  funeral  took  place  on  a  rainy  June  day.  Herr  Caro- 
vius, dressed  in  his  shabby  old  yellow  rain-coat  with  its  big  pockets, 
was  present.  There  were  also  many  others  present.  Every  face 


THE  ROOM  WITH  WITHERED  FLOWERS      341 

was  touched  with  grief;  every  eye  was  filled  with  tears,  like  the 
earth  round  about.  Those  who  had  not  known  her  had  at  least 
heard  of  her.  They  had  known  that  she  had  been  there  in  some 
capacity,  just  as  one  hears  of  some  unusual  phenomenon  among  the 
celestial  bodies,  and  that  she  was  gone;  that  she  was  no  more  to  be 
seen.  For  one  moment  at  least  all  these  people  were  changed 
into  deep,  seeing,  feeling  beings;  for  one  moment  they  laid  aside 
their  fruitless  activities,  their  petty  misdeeds,  desires,  anxieties, 
and  vanities,  and  became  conscious  of  the  fact  that  the  truth,  purity, 
love,  and  loveliness  of  this  earth  had  been  decreased. 

Herr  Carovius  went  home  and  made  a  lime-blossom  tea;  such 
a  tea  had  often  helped  him  when  he  had  not  felt  well. 

The  rain  dripped  down  on  the  kitchen  window  sill.  Herr 
Carovius  said  to  himself:  "That  is  my  last  funeral." 

Along  in  the  evening  Dorothea  came  in  and  after  her  Philippina 
Schimmelweis.  Herr  Carovius  had  paid  her  many  a  penny  for  her 
services  as  a  spy,  and  now  she  wanted  to  hear  what  he  had  to  say 
to  this  last  and  greatest  of  misfortunes.  His  infatuated  interest 
in  everything  Eleanore  did  had  been  a  source  of  unmitigated 
pleasure  to  her,  though  she  had  been  exceedingly  cautious  never  to 
let  him  see  how  she  felt  about  it  all.  On  the  contrary,  she  never 
failed  to  affect  a  hypocritical  seriousness  in  the  face  of  all  his 
questions,  orders,  instructions,  and  caustic  observations.  She  had 
egged  him  on;  she  had  flattered  him;  she  had  used  every  oppor- 
tunity to  fan  the  flames  of  his  ridiculous  hopes.  Owing  to  this  the 
confidence  between  the  two  had  grown  to  considerable  proportion; 
the  man's  senile  madness,  born  of  his  love  for  Eleanore,  had  even 
aroused  Philippina's  lewd  lasciviousness. 

She  said  she  would  have  to  be  going  home;  the  child  was 
asleep;  and  though  she  had  locked  the  front  door,  you  could  never 
tell  what  was  going  to  happen  over  there.  "My  God,"  she  said, 
"things  take  place  in  that  house  that  are  never  heard  of  in  any 
other  home." 

The  presence  of  Dorothea  disturbed  and  annoyed  her.  She  sat 
down  on  the  kitchen  bench,  and  looked  at  the  young  girl  with 
poison  in  her  eyes.  Dorothea  on  the  other  hand  found  it  painfully 
difficult  to  conceal  her  disgust  at  the  mere  sight  of  Philippina: 
her  ugliness  defied  descriptive  adjectives.  Dorothea  never  took 
her  eyes  off  the  creature  who  sat  there  talking  in  a  screeching 
voice,  and  who,  as  if  her  normal  unattractiveness  were  not  enough, 
had  her  head  bandaged. 

The   fact  is  that  Philippina  had  the  toothache;    for  this  reason 


342  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

her  face  was  wrapped  in  a  loud,  checkered  cloth,  while  out  from 
underneath  her  hat  stuck  two  little  tassels. 

She  told  the  story  of  Eleanore's  death  with  much  satisfaction 
to  herself,  and  with  that  delight  in  the  tragic  in  which  she  revelled 
by  instinct.  "And  now,"  she  said,  "old  Jordan  sits  over  there  in 
his  attic  rooms  and  sobs,  and  Daniel  goes  moping  about,  refusing 
to  eat  any  food  and  looking  at  you  with  eyes  that  would  fill  you 
with  fear  even  if  everything  else  was  as  it  should  be." 

This  is  the  point  to  which  Daniel  has  brought  things,  she 
showed  in  her  gratuitous  report,  in  which  there  was  an  attempt 
to  chide  him  for  his  waywardness:  He  has  put  two  women  under 
the  ground,  has  a  helpless  child  in  the  house,  is  out  of  a  job,  is 
not  making  a  cent.  Now  what  could  this  kind  of  doings  lead  to? 
Judge  Riibsam's  wife  had  paid  the  funeral  expenses.  Why,  you 
know,  Daniel  didn't  even  know  what  they  were  talking  about 
when  the  bill  came  in,  and  old  Jordan,  he  didn't  have  twenty 
marks  to  his  name.  She  swore  she  wasn't  going  to  stand  for  it 
much  longer,  and  if  Daniel  didn't  quit  his  piano-strumming — he 
wasn't  getting  a  cent  for  it — she  was  going  to  know  a  thing  or 
two. 

Quite  contrary  to  his  established  custom,  Herr  Carovius  failed 
to  show  the  slightest  interest  in  her  gabble;  at  least  he  made  no 
concessions  to  her.  Nor  did  he  fuss  and  fume;  he  gazed  into 
space,  and  seemed  to  be  thinking  about  many  serious  things  all  at 
the  same  time.  His  silence  made  Philippina  raging  mad.  She 
jumped  up  and  left  without  saying  good-bye  to  him,  slamming 
first  the  room  door  and  then  the  hall  door  behind  her. 

Dorothea  was  standing  by  the  piano  rummaging  around  in  some 
note  books.  Her  thoughts  were  on  what  she  had  just  been 
hearing. 

She  remembered  Daniel  Nothafft  quite  well.  She  knew  that 
there  was  an  irreconcilable  feud  between  him  and  her  father. 
She  had  seen  him;  people  had  pointed  out  the  man  with  the  angry 
looking  eyes  to  her  on  the  street.  She  had  felt  at  the  time  as  if 
she  had  already  talked  with  him,  though  she  could  not  say  when 
or  where.  She  had  a  vague  idea  as  to  what  people  said  about  him, 
and  she  knew  that  he  was  looked  upon  in  the  city  as  the  adversary 
of  evil  himself. 

Her  breast  was  filled  with  an  aimle?s  longing.  Her  blood 
began  to  run  warm,  the  fusty  milieu  in  which  she  just  then  chanced 
to  be  cleared  up  and  began  to  bestir  itself.  She  took  her  violin 
and  began  to  play  a  Hungarian  dance,  while  an  enlivening  smile 


THE  ROOM  WITH  WITHERED  FLOWERS      343 

flitted  across  her  face,  and  her  eyes  shone  with  the  audacity  of  an 
ambitious  and  temperamental  g'rl. 

Herr  Carovius  raised  his  head:  "Tempo!"  he  exclaimed, 
"Tempo!"  and  began  to  beat  time  with  his  hands  and  stamp  the 
floor  with  his  feet. 

Dorothea  smiled,  shook  her  head,  and  played  more  and  more 
rapidly. 

"Tempo,"  howled  Herr  Carovius.     "Tempo!" 

The  barking  of  a  sad  dog  was  wafted  into  the  room  from  the 
court  below.  It  was  Caesar:  he  was  on  his  last  legs. 


Daniel's  mother  had  come;  she  had  brought  little  Eva  along. 

Marian  had  learned  of  Eleanore's  death  through  the  news- 
paper. No  one  had  thought  of  her;  no  one  had  written  to  her. 
She  had  not  read  it  in  the  newspaper  herself.  The  doctor  in 
Eschenbach,  who  had  subscribed  to  the  Frankischer  Herold,  had 
read  it  one  morning,  and  had  given  her  the  paper  with  considera- 
ble hesitation,  calling  her  attention  to  the  death  notice. 

She  was  not  present  at  the  funeral.  But  she  went  out  to  the 
cemetery  and  prayed  by  Eleanore's  grave. 

She  appreciated  Daniel's  loss.  When  she  met  him  he  was 
precisely  as  she  thought  he  would  be.  She  recognised  her  son  in 
his  great  grief  and  mute  despair:  he  was  nearer  to  her  then  than  at 
any  other  time  of  his  life.  She  honoured  his  grief;  she  did  not 
need  to  decrease  it  or  divert  it.  She  was  silent,  just  as  Daniel 
himself  was  silent.  All  she  did  was  to  lay  her  hand  on  his  fore- 
head occasionally.  He  murmured:  "Mother,  oh  Mother!"  She 
replied:  "Now  don't!  Don't  think  of  me!" 

She  said  to  herself:  "When  an  Eleanore  dies  in  the  full  bloom 
of  youth,  one  must  mourn  until  the  soul  of  its  own  accord  again 
grows  hungry  for  life." 

At  first  Eva  had  tried  to  play  with  her  little  step-sister;  but 
Philippina  had  chased  her  from  the  room.  Once  she  turned 
against  the  enraged  daughter  of  Jason  Philip  Schimmelweis,  and 
said:  "I'll  tell  mv  father  on  you!" 

"Yes?  You'll  tell  your  father?  Well,  tell  him!  Who  cares?" 
replied  Philippina  scornfully.  "But  who  is  your  father?  What 
is  he?  Where  is  he?  In  Pomerania  perhaps?"  Whereupon  she 
added  in  a  sing-song  voice:  "Pomerania  is  burnt  to  the  ground. 
Fly,  cockchafer,  fly<" 


344  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

"My  father?  He's  in  the  room  there,"  replied  Eva  surprised 
and  offended:  "I  am  in  his  house,  and  little  Agnes  is  my  sister." 

Philippina  tore  open  her  eyes  and  her  mouth:  "Your  father — 
is  in  the  room — "  she  stammered,  "and  little  Agnes — is  your  sis- 
ter?" She  got  up,  seized  Eva  by  the  shoulders,  and  dragged  her 
across  the  floor  into  the  room  where  Daniel  and  Marian  were 
sitting.  With  an  outburst  of  laughter  that  sounded  as  though 
she  were  not  quite  in  her  right  mind,  and  with  an  expression  of 
impudence  and  rage  on  her  face,  she  panted  forth  her  indignation 
in  the  following  terms:  "This  brat  says  Daniel  is  her  father  and 
Agnes  is  her  sister!  A  scurvy  chit — I'll  say!" 

Marian,  terrified,  sprang  to  her  feet,  ran  over  to  Eva,  and 
began  to  scream:  "Let  her  go,  take  your  hands  off  that  child!" 
Eva  was  pale,  the  tears  were  rolling  down  her  cheeks,  her  little 
arms  were  stretched  out  as  if  in  urgent  need  of  help  from  an 
older  hand.  Philippina  let  go  of  her  and  stepped  back.  "Is  it 
really  true?"  she  whispered,  "is  it  really  true?"  Marian  knelt 
down  and  picked  up  her  foster  child:  "Now  you  mind  your  own 
business,  you  rogue,"  she  said  to  Philippina. 

"Daniel?"  Philippina  turned  to  Daniel  with  uplifted  arms,  and 
repeated,  "Daniel?"  She  seemed  to  be  challenging  him  to  speak; 
and  to  be  reproaching  him  for  having  deceived  her.  There  was 
something  quite  uncanny  about  the  way  she  said,  "Daniel? 
Daniel?" 

"You  go  back  and  mind  Agnes!"  said  Daniel,  worried  as  he  had 
never  been  before:  he  felt  more  than  ever  under  obligations  to 
Philippina.  And  what  could  he  do  now  without  her?  She  was 
the  sole  guardian  of  his  child.  His  mother  could  not  remain  in 
the  city;  she  had  to  make  her  living,  and  that  she  could  do  only 
over  in  Eschenbach.  Her  business  was  located  there;  and  there 
Eva  was  growing  up  in  peace  and  happiness.  On  the  other  hand, 
he  did  not  feel  that  it  would  be  possible  or  advisable  to  take 
Agnes  away  from  Philippina,  even  if  his  mother  saw  fit  to  adopt 
her  too.  Philippina  was  attached  to  the  child  with  an  ape-like 
affection.  And  more  than  this:  Who  would  take  care  of  old  Jor- 
dan if  Philippina  were  discharged?  Daniel  could  not  make  his 
bed  or  get  his  meals. 

Philippina  went  out.  "The  damned  scoundrel!"  she  said  as  soon 
•s  she  had  left  the  room.  She  clenched  her  horny  fists,  and  con- 
tinued Daniel's  life  history:  "The  brute  has  a  bastard,  he  ha?. 
You  wait,  you  little  chit,  and  the  first  chance  I  get  I'll  scratch 
vour  eve:  out!" 


THE  ROOM  WITH  WITHERED  FLOWERS      345 

Taking  the  child  on  her  lap,  Marian  sat  down  by  Daniel's 
side.  "Don't  cry,  Eva,  don't  cry;  we're  going  back  home  now  in  a 
minute." 

Daniel  looked  at  his  mother  most  attentively,  and  told  her  how 
Philippina  had  chanced  to  come  into  his  family.  He  told  her  all 
about  Jason  Philip's  attempt  to  rob  him  of  his  inheritance,  and 
how  his  own  daughter  had  betrayed  him;  how  his  father  had 
taken  three  thousand  talers  to  Jason  Philip;  how  Jason  Philip 
had  been  forced  to  hand  over  a  part  of  the  money  when  Jordan 
was  in  trouble  because  of  his  son;  and  how  he  had  waived  his 
claims  to  the  rest  of  the  money. 

Marian's  head  sank  low  on  her  breast.  "Your  father  was  a 
remarkable  man,  Daniel,"  she  said  after  a  long  silence,  "but  he 
never  did  understand  people;  and  the  person  whom  he  misunder- 
stood most  of  all  was  his  wife.  He  was  like  a  man  who  is  blind, 
but  who  does  not  want  to  let  it  be  known  that  he  is  blind:  he 
walks  around,  but  where  does  he  go?  He  stands  still  and  has  not 
the  faintest  idea  where  he  is.  And  by  the  way,  Daniel,  it  seems 
to  me  that  you  are  a  little  bit  like  him.  Open  your  eyes,  Daniel, 
I  beg  you,  open  your  eyes!" 

The  child  in  her  lap  had  fallen  asleep.  Daniel  looked  into 
Eva's  face — yes,  he  opened  his  eyes — and  as  he  saw  this  delicate, 
sweet,  charming  countenance  so  close  before  him,  he  could  no 
longer  control  himself.  He  turned  to  the  wall,  and  cried  as  if 
his  heart  would  break:  "I  am  a  murderer!" 

"No,  Daniel,"  said  Marian  gently,  "or  if  you  are,  then  every- 
body who  lives  is  a  murderer,  the  dead  of  the  past  being  the 
victims." 

Daniel  writhed  in  agony  and  gnashed  his  teeth. 

"Father  is  in  the  room  there,"  whispered  Eva  in  her  dreams. 

XI 

The  hardest  of  all  for  Marian  was  to  get  along  with  old 
Jordan;  for  he  was  only  a  shadow  of  his  former  self.  He  never 
entered  Daniel's  room;  if  Marian  wanted  to  see  him  she  went 
upstairs,  and  there  he  sat,  quiet,  helpless,  extinguished,  a  picture 
of  utter  dereliction. 

He  never  mentioned  his  sorrows;  it  made  him  restless  to  see  that 
Marian  sympathised  with  him.  When  she  did,  he  became  quite 
courteous;  he  even  tried  to  act  the  part  of  a  man  of  the  world. 
The  effect  of  this  assumed  sprightliness.  seen  from  the  back- 


346  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

ground  of  his  physical  impoverishment  and  spiritual  decay,  was 
terrifying. 

Marian  hoped  to  hear  something  from  him  concerning  Dan- 
iel's present  situation.  She  knew,  in  a  general  way,  that  he  was 
in  profound  distress,  that  he  was  living  in  most  straightened  cir- 
cumstances, and  this  worried  her  tremendously.  But  she  wanted 
to  know  how  he  stood  in  the  world;  whether  people  felt  there 
was  anything  to  him;  and  whether  music  was  something  from  which 
a  man  could  make  a  decent  living.  On  this  last  point  her  dis- 
trust was  as  strong  as  ever;  her  fear  showed  no  signs  of  weakening. 
It  was  Eleanore,  and  she  only,  that  had  given  her  a  measure  of 
confidence:  it  seemed  that  Eleanore's  disposition,  her  very  presence, 
had  inspired  her  with  a  vague,  faraway  idea  of  music.  But  now 
Eleanore  was  gone,  and  all  her  old  doubts  returned. 

Jordan  however  became  painfully  secretive  whenever  she  re- 
ferred to  Daniel.  He  seemed  to  be  grieved  at  the  mere  mention 
of  his  name.  He  would  merely  look  at  the  door,  tuck  his  hands 
up  his  coat-sleeves,  and  draw  his  head  down  between  his  shoulders, 

Once  he  said:  "Can  you  explain  to  me,  my  good  woman,  why 
I  am  alive?  Can  you  throw  any  light  on  such  a  preposterous 
paradox  as  my  present  existence:1  My  son — a  wretch,  vanished 
without  a  trace,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned  no  longer  living.  My 
daughters,  both  of  them,  in  the  grave;  my  dear  wife  also.  I  have 
been  a  man,  a  husband,  and  a  father;  that  is,  I  have  been  a  father! 
My  existence  scorns  the  laws  and  purposes  of  nature.  To  eat,  to 
drink,  to  sleep — oh,  what  repulsive  occupations!  And  yet,  if  I 
do  not  eat,  I  get  hungry;  if  I  do  not  drink,  I  get  thirsty;  if  I  do 
not  sleep,  I  get  sick.  How  simple,  how  aimless  it  all  is!  For  me 
the  birds  no  longer  sing,  the  bells  no  longer  ring,  the  musicians 
have  no  more  music." 

Owing  to  her  desire  to  find  consolation  of  some  kind  and  at 
any  price,  she  turned  to  Eberhard  and  Sylvia;  they  were  now 
visiting  Daniel  almost  every  day.  She  liked  them;  there  was  so 
much  consideration  for  other  people  in  their  behaviour,  so  much 
delicacy  and  refinement  in  their  conversation.  Sylvia  was  not  in 
the  least  offended  by  Daniel's  sullen  silence;  she  treated  him  with 
a  respect  and  deference  that  made  Marian  feel  good;  for  it  was 
proof  to  her  that  in  the  eyes  of  good  and  noble  people  Daniel 
stood  in  high  esteem.  The  Baron  seemed  in  some  mysterious  way 
to  be  continually  talking  about  Eleanore,  though  he  never  men- 
tioned her  name.  There  was  a  sadness  in  his  eyes  that  reminded 
her  of  Eleanore;  there  was  something  supersensuous  in  its  power. 


THE  ROOM  WITH  WITHERED  FLOWERS      347 

Marian  often  felt  as  though  this  strange  nobleman  and  her  son 
were  brothers  and  at  the  same  time  enemies,  as  seen  in  the  light 
of  painful  memories.  Sylvia  also  seemed  to  have  the  same  feeling; 
but  she  found  nothing  objectionable  in  the  relation. 

One  day,  as  Marian  accompanied  the  two  to  the  hall  door,  she 
decided  to  pick  up  her  courage;  and  she  did.  "Well,  how  do  you 
think  he  is  going  to  make  out?"  she  asked;  r'he  has  no  work;  as 
a  matter  of  fact  he  never  speaks  of  work.  What  will  that  lead  to?" 

"We  have  been  thinking  about  that,"  replied  Sylvia,  "and  I 
believe  a  way  has  been  found  to  help  him.  He  will  hear  about  it 
in  a  short  while.  But  he  must  not  suspect  that  we  have  anything 
to  do  with  it."  She  looked  at  her  fiance;  he  nodded  approvingly. 

Eberhard  and  Sylvia  knew  perfectly  well  from  the  very  begin- 
ning that  there  could  be  no  thought  of  lending  Daniel  money. 
Gifts,  large  or  small,  merely  humiliated  him;  they  disgraced  him. 
It  was  a  case  where  eagerness  to  serve  on  the  part  of  those  who 
have  meets  with  insurmountable  obstacles,  whether  they  wish  to 
be  lavish  in  their  generosity  or  of  seeming  calculation.  There  was 
no  use  to  appeal  to  delicacy;  attenuating  provisos  would  not  help; 
amall  deceptions  practised  in  the  spirit  of  love  would  prove  inef- 
fectual. Riches  stood  face  to  face  with  poverty,  and  was  as  helpless 
as  poverty  usually  is  when  obliged  to  enter  the  lists  against  riches. 
The  case  was  striking,  but  not  unique. 

Having  made  up  her  mind  to  come  to  the  assistance  of  the 
musician,  Sylvia  turned  to  her  mother.  But  it  was  idle  to  count 
on  the  backing  of  the  Baroness:  Andreas  Doderlein  had  so  poisoned 
her  mind  against  Daniel  that  the  mere  mention  of  his  name  caused 
her  brow  to  wrinkle,  her  lips  to  drop. 

Agatha  von  Erfft  got  in  touch,  by  letter,  with  some  business 
people  who  were  in  a  position  to  give  her  some  practical  advice. 
Their  assistance  was  helpful  in  that  it  at  least  saved  her  the  invalu- 
able time  she  might  have  lost  by  appealing  to  the  wrong  people. 
One  day  she  appeared  before  Eberhard  and  Sylvia  with  her  plans 
all  drawn  up. 

One  of  the  most  reputable  music  houses  of  Mayence  had  been 
nursing  the  idea  for  years  of  bringing  out  a  pretentious  collection 
of  mediasval  church  music.  A  great  deal  of  material  had  already 
been  assembled  under  the  supervision  of  a  writer  on  musical  sub- 
jects who  had  recently  died.  But  there  was  still  much -to  be  col- 
lected. To  do  this,  it  would  be  necessary  to  go  on  long  journeys, 
and  these  would  entail  the  expenditure  of  a  good  deal  of  money. 
Moreover,  it  was  necessary  to  find  a  man  who  would  not  be  afraid 


548  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

of  the  work  attached  to  the  undertaking,  and  on  whose  judgment 
one  could  rely  without  doubt  or  cavil.  Owing  to  the  fact  that  the 
expenses  up  to  the  present  had  far  exceeded  the  initial  calcula- 
tions, and  since  it  seemed  impossible  to  engage  the  right  sort  of  man 
to  place  in  charge  of  the  work,  the  publisher  had  become  first 
sceptical  and  then  positive;  positive  that  he  would  invest  no  more 
money  in  it. 

Agatha  had  heard  of  this  some  time  ago.  That  the  enterprise 
might  be  revived  she  learned  from  direct  inquiry;  indirect  investi- 
gation confirmed  what  she  had  been  told.  But  the  publisher  was 
unwilling  to  assume  all  the  financial  responsibility;  he  was  looking 
for  a  patron  who  would  be  disposed  to  invest  capital  in  the  plan, 
If  such  a  person  could  be  found,  he  was  willing  to  place  Daniel 
Nothafft,  whose  name  was  now  known  to  him,  in  the  responsible 
position  of  making  the  collections  and  editing  them.  There  would 
be  a  good  deal  of  work  connected  with  the  undertaking:  the  treas- 
ures of  the  archives,  libraries,  and  convents  would  have  to  be  inves- 
tigated; corrections  would  have  to  be  made;  notes  would  have  to  be 
written;  and  the  entire  work  would  have  to  be  seen  through  the 
press.  To  do  this  would  take  several  years.  The  publisher  con- 
sequently insisted  that  whoever  was  placed  in  charge  should  sign  a 
contract  to  remain  until  the  work  had  been  finished,  he  in  turn 
agreeing  to  pay  the  editor  a  salary  of  three  thousand  marks  a 
year. 

Eberhard  made  careful  inquiries  as  to  the  standing  of  the  firm, 
and  finding  that  it  enjoyed  a  rating  well  above  the  average,  he 
agreed  to  furnish  the  requisite  capital. 

A  few  days  after  the  conversation  between  Sylvia  and  Marian, 
Daniel  received  a  letter  in  the  morning  mail  from  Philander  and 
Sons,  requesting  him  to  accept  the  position,  a  detailed  description 
of  which  was  given.  In  the  event  of  his  acceptance,  all  he  had  to 
do  was  to  sign  the  enclosed  contract. 

He  read  the  letter  carefull)  and  quietly  from  beginning  to 
end.  His  face  did  not  brighten  up.  He  walked  back  and  forth 
in  the  room  a  few  times,  and  then  went  to  the  window  and  looked 
out.  "It  seems  to  rain  every  day  this  summer,"  he  said. 

Marian  had  returned  to  the  table.  She  took  the  letter  with 
the  enclosed  contract  and  read  both  of  them.  Her  heart  beat  with 
joy,  but  she  was  exceedingly  careful  not  to  betray  her  state  of 
mind  to  Daniel:  she  was  afraid  of  his  contradictory  and  crotchety 
disposition.  She  hardly  dared  look  at  him,  as  she  waited  in  anxious 
•uspense  to  see  what  he  would  do. 


THE  ROOM  WITH  WITHERED  FLOWERS      349 

Finally  he  came  back  to  the  table,  made  a  wry  face,  stared  at 
the  letter,  and  then  said  quite  laconically:  "Church  music?  Yes, 
I  will  do  it."  With  that  he  took  his  pen,  and  scrawled  his  name 
to  the  contract. 

"Thank  God,"  whispered  Marian. 

That  afternoon  they  left  Daniel.  Eva  hung  on  her  father's 
neck,  quite  unwilling  to  leave  him.  Without  the  least  display  of 
shyness,  she  kissed  him  many  times,  laughing  as  she  did  so.  She 
was  overflowing  with  a  natural  and  whole-hearted  love  for  him. 
Daniel  offered  no  resistance.  He  looked  serious.  As  his  eye 
caught  that  of  the  child,  he  shuddered  at  the  abundant  fulness  of 
her  life;  but  he  was  aware  at  the  same  time  of  a  promise,  and 
against  this  he  struggled  with  all  the  power  there  was  in  him. 

XII 

It  was  a  sunny  day  in  September.  Eberhard,  who  had  spent  the 
entire  August  at  ErfFt,  had  returned  to  the  city  to  attend  to  some 
urgent  business — and  also  to  hasten  the  arrangements  for  his  com- 
ing wedding. 

As  the  streets  were  filled  with  playing  children,  he  sauntered 
along  on  his  way  up  to  the  Castle  on  the  hill.  He  wanted  to  look 
up  his  little  house;  he  had  not  been  in  it  for  months.  He  had  a 
feeling  that  he  would  enjoy  the  quiet  up  there;  he  longed  to 
look  back  over  and  into  scenes  from  the  past;  he  wanted  to  pass  in 
review  the  shadowy  pictures  of  his  former  self;  pictures  he  saw 
before  him  wherever  he  went,  wherever  he  was.  One  of  these 
was  always  with  him;  if  he  found  himself  in  a  certain  room  it 
was  there;  if  he  went  on  a  long  journey  it  was  with  him.  He 
even  found  it  on  the  faded  pages  of  books  he  had  taken  to  himself 
as  companions  in  his  loneliness. 

He  hesitated  from  time  to  time,  stopped,  and  seemed  quite 
irresolute.  All  of  a  sudden  he  turned  around,  and  started  back 
with  hasty  steps  to  ^gydius  Place.  Just  as  he  was  entering  the 
hall  of  Daniel's  apartment,  he  met  Daniel  coming  out.  He 
greeted  Eberhard  and  gave  him  his  hand. 

"I  was  just  going  to  call  for  you,"  said  the  Baron.  "Won't  you 
come  with  me  up  to  my  old  hermitage?" 

Daniel  looked  out  through  his  glasses  at  a  swallow  that  was  just 
then  circling  around  over  the  square;  there  was  something  fabuloui 
in  its  flight.  "To  tell  you  the  truth,  Baron,  I  have  very  little 
inclination  to  gossip  at  present."  He  made  the  remark  with  as 


350  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

much  consideration  for  the  laws  of  human  courtesy  as  lay  within 
his  power. 

"There  must  be  no  gossiping,"  said  Eberhard.  "I  have  a  great 
secret,  one  that  I  can  tell  you  without  saying  a  word." 

Daniel  went  along  with  him. 

The  air  in  the  little  house  was  dead,  stuffy.  But  Eberhard 
did  not  open  the  windows;  he  wished  to  have  it  as  quiet  as  it  was 
when  they  entered.  Daniel  took  a  seat  on  one  of  the  chairs  in 
the  former  living  room  of  the  Baron.  Eberhard  thought  he  had 
sat  down  because  he  was  tired;  he  therefore  took  a  seat  opposite 
him.  The  evening  sun  cast  a  slanting  ray  on  an  old  copper  en- 
graving based  on  a  scene  from  pastoral  life.  A  mouse  played  around 
in  the  corner. 

"Well,  what  is  your  secret? "  asked  Daniel  brusquely,  after  they 
had  sat  in  perfect  silence  for  some  time. 

Eberhard  got  up,  and  made  a  gesture  which  meant  that  Daniel 
was  to  follow  him.  They  crossed  the  narrow  hall,  climbed  up 
a  pair  of  small  steps,  and  then  Eberhard  opened  a  door  leading 
into  the  attic  room. 

A  stupefying,  deadening  odour  of  decayed  flowers  struck  them 
in  the  face.  Involuntarily  Daniel  turned  to  go,  but  the  Baron 
pointed  at  the  walls  in  absolute  silence. 

"What  is  this?  What  kind  of  a  room  is  this? "  asked  Daniel, 
rather  forcibly. 

The  four  walls  of  the  room  were  completely  covered  with 
bouquets,  garlands,  and  wreaths  of  withered  flowers.  The  leaves 
had  fallen  from  most  of  them,  and  were  now  lying  scattered  about 
the  floor.  Leaves  that  had  once  been  green  had  turned  brown;  the 
grasses  and  mosses  were  in  shreds,  the  twigs  were  dry  and  brittle. 
Many  of  the  bouquets  had  had  ribbons  attached  to  them;  these, 
once  red  or  blue,  were  now  faded.  Others  had  been  bound  with 
gold  tinsel;  this  had  rusted.  The  slanting  rays  of  the  sun  fell  on 
others,  and  lighted  them  as  it  had  shone  on  the  copper  engraving 
in  the  room  below.  Through  the  purple  rays  could  be  seen  a 
dancing  stream  of  dust. 

It  was  a  flower  mausoleum ;  a  vault  of  bouquets,  a  death-house  of 
memories.  Daniel  suspected  what  it  all  meant.  He  felt  his 
tongue  cleaving  to  the  roof  of  his  mouth;  a  chill  ran  over  him. 
And  when  Eberhard  at  last  began  to  speak,  his  eyes  filled  with  hot, 
gushing  tears. 

"The  flowers  were  all  picked  and  bound  by  her  hands,  by  Elea- 
nore's  hands,"  said  Eberhard.  And  then,  after  a  pause:  "She  pre- 


THE  ROOM  WITH  WITHERED  FLOWERS      351 

pared  the  bouquets  for  a  florist,  and  I  bought  them;  she  had  no 
idea  who  bought  them."  That  was  all  he  said. 

Daniel  looked  back  into  his  past  life,  as  if  an  invisible  arm 
were  drawing  him  to  the  pinnacle  of  some  high  mountain.  He 
looked,  and  his  soul  was  dissolved  in  anxiety,  torture,  and  re- 
pentance. 

What  had  he  left?  Two  graves:  that  was  all.  No,  he  had, 
aside  from  the  two  graves,  a  broken  harp,  some  withered  flowers, 
and  a  mask  of  terracotta. 

He  looked  at  the  dead  stems  and  withered  chalices:  Eleanore's 
fingers  had  once  touched  all  of  these.  Her  fingers  were  even  then 
hovering  over  the  dead  buds  like  figures  from  the  realm  of  spirits. 
In  the  dusty  spider  webs  hung  caught  at  present  unused  moments, 
kind  words  that  were  never  spoken,  consolation  that  was  never 
expressed,  encouragement,  consideration,  and  happiness  that  were 
allowed  to  pass  unclaimed  and  unapplied.  Oh,  this  living  and  not 
knowing  what  the  present  contains!  Oh,  this  being  with  a  living 
life,  and  remaining  unaware  of  it!  This  failure  to  avail  one's 
self  of  a  wonderful  day,  a  breathing,  pulsing  hour!  This  drag- 
ging, falling,  plunging  into  the  night  of  desire  and  delusion,  this 
proud,  vain,  criminal  discontent!  O  winged  creature,  winged 
creature,  where  art  thou!  Where  can  one  call  out  to  thee! 

There  was  nothing  left  but  two  graves,  a  broken  harp,  withered 
flowers,  and  a  mask!  And  a  fair  child  here,  a  foul  one  there,  and 
a  third  that  had  come  into  life  only  to  die!  And  up  above  all 
this,  up  above  even  the  tip  of  the  mountain  top,  the  gigantic,  the 
inexpressible,  the  sea  of  dreams  and  dreamed  melodies,  the  breath 
of  God,  the  annunciation  of  infernal  darkness,  the  message  of 
eternity,  the  wonders  of  temporal  existence,  dance  and  dancing 
pipes,  peals  of  thunder,  and  sweet  weavings  of  sound — Music! 

It  was  evening.  The  Baron  closed  the  door.  Daniel  reached  him 
his  hand  in  silence,  and  then  went  home. 


THE  PROMETHEAN  SYMPHONY 


During  the  following  autumn  and  winter,  Daniel  lived  a  quiet, 
lonely  life.  In  the  spring,  Sylvia  von  Auffenberg  wrote  him  a 
letter,  asking  him  to  come  over  to  Siegmundshof  and  spend  a  few 
weeks  with  her  and  Eberhard.  He  declined,  though  he  promised 
to  come  later. 

Old  Herold  visited  him  occasionally.  He  told  all  about  the 
friction  in  the  conservatory  since  Doderlein  had  been  in  charge, 
and  contended  that  the  world  was  on  the  point  of  turning  into  a 
pig-stye. 

Herr  Seelenfromm  also  came  in  from  time  to  time,  while 
among  other  visitors  were  the  architect  who  had  a  defect  in  his 
speech  and  Martha  Riibsam.  Toward  the  close  of  the  winter  Herr 
Carovius  also  called.  Socially  he  had  become  more  nearly  possible 
than  he  had  been  in  former  years.  He  still  held,  however,  some 
very  remarkable  views  about  music. 

Whatever  any  of  the  visitors  said  went  in  one  of  Daniel's  ears 
and  out  of  the  other.  It  would  often  happen  that  there  would 
be  a  number  of  people  in  his  presence,  and  he  would  seem  to  be 
listening  to  them;  and  yet  if  you  watched  his  face,  you  could  see 
that  he  was  completely  absent-minded.  If  some  one  turned  to 
him  with  a  question,  he  would  not  infrequently  smile  like  a  child, 
and  make  no  effort  whatsoever  to  respond.  No  one  had  ever  no- 
ticed him  smile  this  way  before. 

He  returned  the  money  Philippina  had  loaned  him  at  the  time 
the  piano  was  pawned.  Philippina  said:  "Oi,  oi,  Daniel,  you  seem 
to  be  swimming  in  money!"  She  brought  him  the  receipt,  and 
then  took  the  money  to  her  room,  where  she  did  a  lot  of  figuring 
to  see  whether  the  interest  had  been  accurately  calculated. 

Little  Agnes  was  sitting  on  the  floor,  sucking  a  stick  of  candy. 
She  was  always  happy  when  Philippina  was  around;  she  was  afraid 
of  her  father. 

Friends  had  told  him  that  his  apartment  was  too  large  now; 
he  was  advised  to  give  it  up  and  take  a  smaller  one.  He  became 

352 


THE  PROMETHEAN  SYMPHONY  353 

enraged;  he  said  he  would  never  do  this  voluntarily,  for  the  house 
meant  a  great  deal  more  to  him  than  merely  so  many  rented 
rooms;  and  he  insisted  that  everything  be  left  just  as  it  was. 

One  day  at  the  beginning  of  spring  he  said  to  Philippina:  "I 
am  going  away  for  a  long  time.  Watch  the  child,  and  don't  let 
the  old  man  upstairs  suffer  for  anything.  I  will  send  you  the 
money  to  keep  up  the  house  on  the  first  day  of  each  month,  and 
you  will  be  held  responsible  for  everything  that  takes  place. 
Moreover,  I  want  to  pay  you  a  set  wage:  I  will  give  you  five  talers 
a  month.  There  is  no  reason  why  you  should  work  for  me  for 
nothing." 

The  shaking  and  shuddering  that  Daniel  had  often  had  occasion 
to  notice  in  Philippina  returned.  She  shrugged  her  shoulders, 
looked  as  mean  as  only  she  could,  and  said:  "Save  your  coppers; 
you'll  need  'em;  you  mustn't  try  to  act  so  rich  all  of  a  sudden; 
it  ain't  good  for  your  health.  If  you  have  any  money  to  spend, 
go  out  and  git  Agnes  a  pair  of  shoes  and  a  decent  dress."  Daniel 
made  no  reply. 

Her  greediness  in  money  matters  had  certainly  not  diminished 
since  the  day  she  began  to  pilfer  from  her  parents.  She  loved 
money;  she  adored  the  shining  metal;  she  liked  to  see  it  and  feel 
it;  she  liked  to  take  bank  notes  in  her  hands  and  caress  them.  It 
gave  her  intense  pleasure  to  think  that  people  looked  upon  her  as 
being  poor  when  she  was  actually  carrying  more  than  a  thousand 
marks  around  in  an  old  stocking  stuffed  down  in  her  corset  be- 
tween her  breasts.  She  loved  to  hear  people  complain  of  hard 
times.  When  a  beggar  reached  out  his  hand  to  her  on  the  street, 
she  felt  that  he  was  doing  it  as  an  act  of  homage  to  her;  she  would 
cause  her  bosom  to  heave  so  that  she  might  feel  the  presence  of 
the  stocking  more  keenly.  She  was  pleased  to  think  that  one  so 
young  had  made  herself  so  secure  against  future  eventualities  of 
any  kind. 

She  felt,  despite  all  this,  like  scratching  Daniel's  eyes  out  when 
he  spoke  of  paying  her  regular  monthly  wages.  This  she  re- 
garded as  base  ingratitude.  If  it  were  at  all  possible  for  grief  to 
find  ineradicable  lodgment  in  her  envious,  unenlightened,  malicious 
soul,  Daniel's  offer  of  so  much  per  month  made  it  so. 

She  ran  into  the  kitchen,  and  hurled  knives  and  forks  in  the 
sink.  She  went  to  old  Jordan's  room,  knocked  on  his  door,  and 
made  him  open  it;  then  she  told  him  with  all  the  anger  at  her 
resourceful  command  that  Daniel  was  going  away.  "There  is 
hardly  a  cent  in  the  house,  and  he's  going  on  a  jamboree!"  she 


354  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

exclaimed.  "There  is  some  damned  wench  back  of  this.  Go  tell 
him,  Herr  Inspector,  go  tell  him  what  a  dirty  thing  it  is  he's 
doing — going  away  and  leaving  his  child  and  his  old  father  in  the 
lurch.  Do  it,  Herr  Inspector,  and  you'll  get  potato  dumplings, 
ginger-bread,  and  sauce  for  dinner  next  Sunday." 

Jordan  looked  at  Philippina  timidly.  His  mouth  watered  for  the 
food  she  had  promised  him;  for  she  was  holding  him  down  to  a 
near-starvation  diet.  He  was  often  so  hungry  that  he  would  sneak 
into  the  delicatessen  shop,  and  buy  himself  ten  pfennigs'  worth  of 
real  food. 

"I  will  make  inquiry  as  to  the  reason  for  his  going,"  murmured 
Jordan,  "but  I  hardly  believe  that  I  will  be  able  to  move  him  one 
way  or  the  other." 

"Well,  you  go  out  and  take  a  little  walk;  git  a  bit  of  fresh 
air,"  commanded  Philippina;  "I've  got  to  straighten  up  your  room. 
Your  windows  need  washing;  you  can't  see  through  'em  for  dirt." 

Late  that  evening  Daniel  came  up  to  say  good-bye  to  Jordan. 

"Where  are  you  going? "  asked  the  old  man. 

"I  want  to  see  a  little  of  the  German  Empire,"  replied  Daniel, 
"I  have  some  business  to  attend  to  up  in  the  North,  in  the  cities 
and  also  out  in  the  country." 

"Good  luck  to  you,"  said  Jordan,  much  oppressed,  "good  luck 
to  you,  my  dear  son.  How  long  are  you  going  to  be  gone?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know  yet;  possibly  for  years." 

"For  years?"  asked  Jordan.  He  looked  at  the  floor;  he  tried  to 
keep  his  eyes  on  the  floor  under  his  feet:  "Then  I  suppose  vre 
might  as  well  say  good-bye  forever." 

Daniel  shook  his  head.  "It  makes  no  difference  when  I  return, 
1  will  find  you  here,"  he  said  with  a  note  of  strange  assurance  in 
Kis  voice.  "When  fate  has  treated  a  man  too  harshly,  there  seems 
to  come  a  time  when  it  no  longer  bothers  him;  it  evades  him,  in 
fact.  It  seems  to  me  that  this  is  the  case  with  you:  you  are  quite 
fateless." 

Jordan  made  no  reply.  He  opened  his  eyes  as  if  in  fear,  and 
sighed. 

The  next  morning  Daniel  left  home.  He  wore  a  brown  hunting 
jacket  buttoned  close  up  to  his  neck  with  hartshorn  buttons.  Over 
this  hung  a  top-coat  and  a  cape.  His  broad-brimmed  hat  overshad- 
owed his  face,  which  looked  young,  although  so  serious  and  dis- 
tracted that  voices,  glances,  and  sounds  of  any  kind  seemed  to 
rebound  from  it  like  swift-running  water  from  a  smooth  stone  wall. 

Philippina  carried  his  luggage   to   the   station.      Her   dress  was 


THE  PROMETHEAN  SYMPHONY  355 

literally  smothered  in  garish,  gaudy  ribbons.  The  women  in  the 
market-place  laughed  on  seeing  her  until  they  got  a  colic. 

When  Daniel  took  leave  from  her  and  boarded  the  train,  she 
did  not  open  her  mouth;  she  wrinkled  her  forehead,  rubbed  the 
ends  of  her  fingers  against  each  other,  stood  perfectly  quiet,  and 
looked  at  the  ground.  Long  after  the  train  had  left  the  station, 
she  was  still  to  be  seen  standing  there  in  that  unique  position.  A 
station  official  went  up  to  her,  and,  with  poorly  concealed  ridicule 
at  the  rare  phenomenon,  asked  her  what  she  was  waiting  for. 

She  turned  her  back  on  him,  and  started  off.  She  came  back  by 
way  of  St.  James's  Place,  and  talked  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  with 
her  friend  Frau  Hadebusch.  It  was  Sunday.  Benjamin  Dorn  was 
just  coming  home  from  church.  Seeing  Philippina,  he  made  a 
profound  bow. 

Frau  Hadebusch  slapped  Philippina  on  the  hip,  and  smiled  at 
her  knowingly. 

Herr  Francke  was  no  longer  living  at  Frau  Hadebusch's:  he  was 
in  jail.  He  had  promised  to  marry  the  cook  of  a  certain  distin- 
guished family;  but  instead  of  hastening  the  coming  of  the  happy 
day,  he  had  gambled  away  the  savings  of  his  bride-to-be. 


Daniel  had  a  letter  of  introduction  to  the  Prior  of  the  Mon- 
astery at  Lohriedt.  He  was  looking  for  a  manuscript  that  was  sup- 
posed to  have  been  written  by  a  contemporary  of  Orlando  di 
Lasso,  if  not  by  Di  Lasso  himself. 

He  remained  for  over  two  months,  working  at  his  collection. 
He  found  his  association  with  the  monks  quite  agreeable,  and  they 
liked  him.  One  of  them,  who  held  him  in  especially  high  regard 
because  of  his  ability  as  an  organist,  gave  him  to  understand  that  it 
was  a  matter  of  unaffected  regret  to  him  that  he  could  not  greet 
him,  Protestant  that  he  was,  with  the  confidence  that  a  man  of  his 
singular  distinction  deserved. 

"So!  I  wish  I  were  a  Jew,"  said  Daniel  to  him,  "then  you  would 
have  a  really  unqualified  opportunity  to  see  what  God  can  do 
without  your  assistance." 

The  monk  in  question  was  called  Father  Leonhard;  he  was  a 
short,  wiry  fellow  with  black  eyes  and  a  dark  complexion.  He 
seemed  to  have  had  a  great  deal  of  experience  with  the  world,  and 
to  have  no  little  cause  for  contrition  and  repentance:  there  was 
nothing  conventional  about  his  religious  practices;  they  were,  on 


356  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

the  contrary,  of  almost  redundant  fervour  and  renunciation.  Dan- 
iel was  impressed  by  the  man's  faith,  though  his  soul  shuddered 
when  in  his  presence:  he  regarded  him  as  an  enemy,  a  Philistine, 
and  preferred  not  to  look  at  him  at  all. 

He  lived  close  by  the  monastery  in  the  house  of  a  railroad 
official.  Father  Leonhard  came  in  to  visit  him  once.  Daniel  was 
sitting  by  the  window  busily  engaged  in  making  some  corrections. 
The  Father  looked  about  the  room:  his  eyes  fell  on  a  round, 
wooden  box  lying  on  a  chair;  it  looked  like  a  cake  box. 

"The  people  at  home  have  sent  you  something  to  nibble  at," 
remarked  the  Father,  as  Daniel  got*  up. 

Daniel  riveted  his  eyes  on  the  monk,  took  the  box,  hesitated  for 
a  while,  and  then  opened  it.  In  it,  carefully  packed  in  sawdust, 
was  the  mask  of  Zingarella.  It  was  a  part  of  Daniel's  meagre  lug- 
gage; wherever  he  went  it  followed  him. 

Father  Leonhard  sprang  back  terrified.  "What  does  that  mean?" 
he  asked. 

"It  means  sin  and  purification,"  said  Daniel,  holding  the  mask  up 
in  the  light  of  the  setting  sun.  "It  means  grief  and  redemption, 
despair  and  mercy,  love  and  death,  chaos  and  form." 

From  that  day  on,  Father  Leonhard  never  said  another  word  to 
Daniel  Nothafft.  And  whenever  the  strange  musician  chanced  to 
play  the  organ,  the  monk  arose  as  quickly  as  possible,  left  the 
church,  and  sought  out  some  place  where  the  tones  could  not 
reach  him. 


That  summer  Daniel  came  to  Aix-la-Chapelle  and  the  region  of 
Liege,  Louvain,  and  Malines.  From  there  he  wandered  on  foot  to 
Ghent  and  Bruges. 

In  places  where  he  had  to  make  investigations,  he  was  obliged 
to  depend  upon  the  letters  he  received  from  his  publisher  to  make 
himself  understood.  Condemned  to  silence,  he  lived  very  much 
alone;  he  was  a  stranger  in  a  strange  land. 

He  had  no  interest  in  sights.  It  was  rare  that  he  looked  at  old 
paintings.  The  beautiful  never  caused  him  to  stop  unless  it  actu- 
ally blocked  his  way.  He  went  about  as  if  in  between  two  walls. 
He  followed  his  nose,  turned  around  only  with  the  greatest  re- 
luctance, and  never  felt  tired  until  he  was  ready  to  lie  down  to 
sleep. 

And   even   when   he   was   tired   the   feeling   that   he   was  being 


THE  PROMETHEAN  SYMPHONY  357 

robbed  of  something  gnawed  at  his  soul ;  he  was  restless  even  when 
he  slept.  Haste  coloured  his  eye,  fashioned  his  step,  and  moulded 
his  deeds.  He  ate  his  meals  in  haste,  wrote  his  letters  in  haste, 
and  talked  in  haste. 

It  pained  him  to  feel  that  men  were  looking  at  him.  Although 
he  invariably  sought  out  the  most  deserted  corner  of  whatever  inn 
he  chanced  to  stop  at,  and  thereby  avoided  becoming,  so  far  as  he 
might,  the  target  of  the  curious,  he  was  nevertheless  gaped  at, 
watched,  and  studied  wherever  he  went.  For  everything  about 
him  was  conspicuous:  the  energy  of  his  gestures,  the  agility  of  his 
mimicry,  the  way  he  showed  his  teeth,  and  the  nervous,  hacking 
step  with  which  he  moved  through  groups  of  gossiping  people. 

He  had  anticipated  with  rare  pleasure  the  sight  of  the  sea.  He 
was  prepared  to  behold  the  monstrous,  titanic,  seething,  and  surging 
element,  the  tempest  of  the  Apocalypse.  He  was  disappointed  by 
the  peaceful  rise  and  fall  of  the  tide,  the  harmless  rolling  back 
and  forth  of  the  waves.  He  concluded  that  it  were  better  for  one 
not  to  become  acquainted  with  things  that  had  inspired  one's  fancy 
with  reverential  awe. 

He  could  quarrel  with  nature  just  as  he  could  quarrel  with  men. 
The  phases  of  nature  which  he  regarded  as  her  imperfections  ex- 
cited his  anger.  He  was  fond,  however,  of  a  certain  spot  in  the 
forest;  or  he  liked  a  tree  in  the  plain,  or  sunset  along  the  canal. 

He  liked  best  of  all  the  narrow  streets  of  the  cities,  when  the 
gentle  murmurings  of  song  wafted  forth  from  the  open  windows, 
or  when  the  light  from  the  lamp  shone  forth  from  the  windows 
after  they  had  been  closed.  He  loved  to  pass  by  courts  and  cellars, 
gates  and  fences;  when  the  face  of  an  old  man,  or  that  of  a  young 
girl,  came  suddenly  to  view,  when  workmen  went  home  from  the 
factories,  or  soldiers  from  the  barracks,  or  seamen  from  the  har- 
bours, he  saw  a  story  in  each  of  them;  he  felt  as  one  feels  on  read- 
ing an  exciting  book. 

One  day  when  he  was  in  Clcve  he  walked  the  streets  at  night 
all  alone.  He  noticed  a  man  and  a  woman  and  five  children,  all 
poorly  dressed,  standing  near  a  church.  Lying  before  them  on  the 
pavement  were  several  bundles  containing  their  earthly  possessions. 
A  man  came  up  after  a  while  and  addressed  them  in  a  stern, 
domineering  tone;  they  picked  up  their  bundles  and  followed  him: 
it  was  a  mournful  procession.  They  were  emigrants;  the  man  had 
told  them  about  their  ship. 

Daniel  felt  as  if  a  cord  in  his  soul  had  been  made  taut  and 
were  vibrating  without  making  a  sound.  The  steps  of  the  eight 


358  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

people,  as  they  died  away  in  the  distance,  developed  gradually  into 
a  rhythmical,  musical  movement.  What  had  been  confused  became 
ordered;  what  had  been  dark  shone  forth  in  light.  Weighed  down 
with  heaviness  of  soul,  he  went  on,  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  ground 
as  if  he  were  looking  for  something.  He  no  longer  saw,  nor 
could  he  hear.  Nor  did  he  know  what  time  it  was. 

After  a  year  and  a  half  of  congealed  torpidity,  the  March  wind 
once  more  began  to  blow  in  his  soul. 

But  it  was  like  a  disease;  he  was  being  consumed  with  impatience. 
His  immediate  goal  was  the  cloister  of  CEsede  at  Osnabriick,  and 
from  there  he  wanted  to  go  to  Berlin.  He  could  not  bear  to  sit 
in  the  railway  carriages:  in  Wesel  he  placed  his  trunk  on  a  freight 
train,  and  went  from  there  on  foot,  his  top-coat  hung  over  his 
arm,  his  knapsack  strapped  across  his  back.  Despite  the  inclement 
weather  he  walked  from  eight  to  ten  hours  every  day.  It  was 
towards  the  end  of  October,  the  mornings  and  evenings  were 
chilly,  the  roads  were  muddy,  the  inns  were  wretched.  This  did 
not  deter  him  from  going  on:"  he  walked  and  walked,  sought  and 
sought,  often  until  late  at  night,  passsionately  absorbed  in  himself. 

When  he  came  to  the  coal  and  iron  district,  he  raised  his  head 
more  and  more  frequently.  The  houses  were  black,  the  earth  and 
the  air  were  black,  blackened  men  met  him  on  the  road.  Copper 
wires  hummed  in  the  fog  and  mist,  hammers  clinked,  wheels 
hummed,  chimneys  smoked,  whistles  blew — it  was  like  a  dream 
vision,  like  the  landscape  of  an  unknown  and  accursed  star. 

One  evening  he  left  a  little  inn  which  he  had  entered  to  get 
something  to  eat  and  drink.  It  was  eight  miles  to  Dortmund,  where 
he  planned  to  stay  over  night.  He  had  left  the  main  road,  when 
all  of  a  sudden  the  fire  from  the  blast-furnaces  leaped  up,  giving 
the  mist  the  appearance  of  a  blood-red  sea.  Miners  were  coming 
in  to  the  village;  in  the  light  of  the  furnaces  their  tired,  blackened 
faces  looked  like  so  many  demoniac  caricatures.  Far  or  near,  it 
was  impossible  to  say,  a  horse  could  be  seen  drawing  a  car  over 
shining  rails.  On  it  stood  a  man  flourishing  his  whip.  Beast,  man, 
and  car  all  seemed  to  be  of  colossal  size;  the  "gee"  and  "haw" 
of  the  driver  sounded  like  the  mad  cries  of  a  spectre;  the  iron 
sounds  from  the  forges  resembled  the  bellowing  of  tormented 
creatures. 

Daniel  had  found  what  he  had  been  looking  for:  he  had  found 
the  mournful  melody  that  had  driven  him  away  the  day  Eleanore 
died.  He  had,  to  be  sure,  put  it  on  the  paper  then  and  there, 


THE  PROMETHEAN  SYMPHONY  359 

but  it  had  remained  without  consequence:  it  had  been  buried  in 
the  grave  with  Eleanore. 

Now  it  had  arisen,  and  its  soul — its  consequence — had  arisen 
with  it;  it  was  expanded  into  a  wonderful  arch,  arranged  and 
limbed  like  a  body,  and  filled  as  the  world  is  full. 

Music  had  been  born  to  him  again  from  the  machine,  from 
the  world  of  machinery. 


IV 

Jason  Philip  Schimmelweis  had  been  obliged  to  give  up  his 
house  by  the  museum  bridge.  He  could  not  pay  the  rent;  his 
business  was  ruined.  By  a  mere  coincident  it  came  about  that  the 
house  on  the  Corn  Market  had  a  cheap  apartment  that  was  vacant, 
and  he  took  it.  It  was  the  same  house  in  which  he  lived  when  he 
made  so  much  money  twenty  years  ago. 

Was  Jason  Philip  no  longer  in  touch  with  modern  business 
methods?  Had  he  become  too  old  and  infirm  to  make  the  public 
hungry  for  literary  nourishment?  Were  his  advertisements  with- 
out allurement,  his  baits  without  scent?  No  one  felt  inclined  to 
buy  expensive  lexicons  and  editions  de  luxe  on  the  instalment  plan. 
The  rich  old  fellows  with  a  nose  for  dubious  reading  matter  never 
came  around  any  more.  Jason  Philip  had  become  a  dilatory 
debtor;  the  publishers  no  longer  gave  him  books  on  approval;  he 
was  placed  on  the  black  list. 

He  took  to  abusing  modern  writers,  contending  that  it  was  no 
wonder  that  the  writing  of  books  was  left  exclusively  to  good-for- 
nothing  subjects  of  the  Empire,  for  the  whole  nation  was  suffering 
from  cerebral  atrophy. 

But  his  reasoning  was  of  no  avail;  his  business  collapse  was  im- 
minent; in  a  jiffy  it  was  a  hard  reality.  A  man  by  the  name  of 
Rindskopf  bought  his  stock  and  furnishings  at  brokers'  prices,  and 
the  firm  of  Jason  Philip  Schimmelweis  had  ceased  to  exist. 

In  his  distress  Jason  Philip  appealed  to  the  Liberal  party.  He 
boasted  of  his  friendship  with  the  former  leader  of  the  party, 
Baron  von  Auffenberg,  but  this  only  made  matters  worse:  one 
renegade  was  depending  upon  the  support  of  another.  This  was 
natural:  birds  of  a  feather  flock  together. 

Then  he  went  to  the  Masons,  and  began  to  feel  around  for  their 
help;  he  tried  to  be  made  a  member  of  one  of  the  better  lodges. 
He  was  given  to  understand  that  there  was  some  doubt  as  to  the 


36o  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

loyalty  of  his  convictions,  with  the  result  that  the  Masons  would 
have  none  of  him. 

For  some  time  he  found  actual  difficulty  in  earning  his  daily 
bread.  He  had  resigned  his  position  with  the  Prudentia  Insur- 
ance Company  long  ago.  Ever  since  a  certain  interpellation  in 
the  Reichstag  and  a  long  law-suit  in  which  the  Prudentia  became 
involved,  and  whfch  was  decided  in  favour  of  its  opponents,  the 
standing  of  the  company  had  suffered  irreparably. 

Jason  Philip  had  no  other  choice:  he  had  to  go  back  to  book- 
binding; he  had  to  return  to  pasting,  cutting,  and  folding.  He 
returned  in  the  evening  of  his  life,  downcast,  impoverished,  and 
embittered,  to  the  position  from  which  he  had  started  as  an  am- 
bitious, resourceful,  stout-hearted,  and  self-assured  man  years  ago. 
His  eloquence  had  proved  of  no  avail,  his  cunning  had  not  helped 
him,  nor  his  change  of  political  conviction,  nor  his  familiarity 
with  the  favourable  turns  of  the  market,  nor  his  speculations.  He 
had  never  believed  that  the  order  of  things  in  the  world  about 
him  was  just  and  righteous,  neither  as  a  Socialist  nor  as  a  Liberal. 
And  now  he  was  convinced  that  it  was  impossible  to  write  a 
motto  on  the  basis  of  business  principles  that  would  be  fit  material 
for  a  copy  book  in  a  kindergarten. 

Willibald  was  still  the  same  efficient  clerk.  Markus  had  got  a- 
job  in  a  furniture  store,  where  he  spent  his  leisure  hours  studying 
Volapiik,  convinced  as  he  was  that  all  the  nations  of  the  earth 
would  soon  be  using  this  great  fraternal  tongue. 

Theresa  moved  into  the  house  on  the  Corn  Market  with  as  much 
peace  and  placidity  as  if  she  had  been  anticipating  such  a  change 
for  years.  There  was  a  bay  window  in  the  house,  and  by  this  she 
sat  when  her  work  in  the  kitchen  was  done,  knitting  socks  for  her 
sons.  At  times  she  would  scratch  her  grey  head  with  her  knitting 
needle,  at  times  she  would  reach  over  and  take  a  sip  of  cold, 
unsugared  coffee,  a  small  pot  of  which  she  always  kept  by  her  side. 
Hers  was  the  most  depressed  face  then  known  to  the  human  family; 
hers  were  the  horniest,  wrinkliest  peasant  hands  that  formed  part 
of  any  citizen  of  the  City  of  Nuremberg. 

She  thought  without  ceasing  of  all  that  nice  money  that  had 
passed  through  her  hands  during  the  two  dcrades  she  had  stood 
behind  the  counter  of  the  establishment  in  the  Plobenhaf  Street. 

She  tried  to  imagine  where  all  the  money  had  gone,  who  was 
using  it  now,  and  who  was  being  tormented  by  it.  For  she  was 
rid  of  it,  and  in  the  bottom  of  her  heart  she  was  glad  that  she 
no  longer  had  it. 


THE  PROMETHEAN  SYMPHONY  361 

One  day  Jason  Philip  came  rushing  from  his  workshop  into  her 
room.  He  had  a  newspaper  in  his  hand;  his  face  was  radiant  with 
joy.  "At  last,  my  dear,  at  last!  I  have  been  avenged.  Jason 
Philip  Schimmelweis  was  after  all  a  good  prophet.  Well,  what 
do  you  say? "  he  continued,  as  Theresa  looked  at  him  without  any 
noticeable  display  of  curiosity,  "what  do  you  say?  I'll  bet  you 
can't  guess.  No,  you  will  never  be  able  to  guess  what's  happened; 
it's  too  much  for  a  woman's  brain."  He  mounted  a  chair,  held 
the  paper  in  his  hand  as  if  it  were  the  flag  of  his  country,  waved 
it,  and  shouted:  "Bismarck  is  done  for!  He's  got  to  go.  The 
Kaiser  hates  him!  Now  let  come  what  may,  I  have  not  lived  in 
vain." 

Jason  Philip  had  the  feeling  that  it  was  due  to  his  efforts  that 
the  reins  of  government  had  been  snatched  from  the  hands  of 
the  Iron  Chancellor.  His  satisfaction  found  expression  in  blatancy 
and  in  actions  that  were  thoroughly  at  odds  with  a  man  of  his  age. 
He  held  up  his  acquaintances  on  the  street,  and  demanded  that  they 
offer  him  their  congratulations.  He  went  to  his  favourite  cafe, 
and  ordered  a  barrel  of  beer  for  the  rejuvenation  of  his  friends. 
He  delivered  an  oration,  spiced  with  all  the  forms  of  sarcasm 
known  to  the  art  of  cheap  politics  and  embellished  with  innumera- 
ble popular  phrases,  explaining  why  he  regarded  this  as  the  hap- 
piest day  of  his  eventful  life. 

He  said:  "If  fate  were  to  do  me  the  favour  of  allowing  me  to 
stand  face  to  face  with  this  menace  to  public  institutions,  this 
unscrupulous  tyrant,  I  would  not,  believe  me,  mince  matters  in  the 
slightest:  I  would  tell  him  things  no  mortal  man  has  thus  far 
dared  say  to  him." 

Several  months  passed  by.  Bismarck,  then  staying  at  his  country 
place  in  Sachsenwald  and  quarrelling  with  his  lot,  decided  to  visit 
Munich.  There  was  tremendous  excitement  in  Nuremberg  when  it 
was  learned  that  he  would  pass  through  the  city  at  such  and  such 
an  hour. 

Everybody  wanted  to  see  him,  young  and  old,  aristocrats  and 
humble  folk.  Early  in  the  morning  the  whole  city  seemed  to  be 
on  its  feet,  making  its  way  in  dense  crowds  out  through  the 
King's  Gate. 

This  was  a  drama  in  which  Jason  Philip  had  to  play  his  part: 
without  him  it  would  be  incomplete.  "To  look  into  the  eyes  of 
a  tiger  whose  claws  have  been  chopped  off  and  whose  teeth  have 
been  knocked  out  is  a  pleasure  and  a  satisfaction  that  my  mother's 
son  dare  not  forego,"  said  he. 


362  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

His  elbows  stood  him  in  good  stead.  When  the  train  pulled 
into  the  station,  our  rebel  was  standing  in  the  front  row,  having 
pushed  his  way  through  the  seemingly  impenetrable  mass  of 
humanity. 

The  train  stopped  for  a  few  minutes.  The  Iron  Chancellot 
left  his  carriage  amid  deafening  hurrahs  from  the  assembled  mul- 
titude. He  shook  hands  with  the  Mayor  and  a  few  high-ranking 
army  officers. 

Jason  Philip  never  budged.  It  never  occurred  to  him  to  shout 
his  own  hurrah.  An  acidulous  smile  played  around  his  mouth,  his 
white  beard  quivered  when  he  dropped  the  corners  of  his  lips  in 
satanic  glee.  It  never  occurred  to  him  to  take  off  his  hat,  despite 
the  threatening  protests  all  too  audible  round  about  him.  "I  am 
consistent,  my  dear  Bismarck,  I  am  incorruptible,"  he  thought  to 
himself. 

And  yet — the  satisfaction  which  we  have  described  as  satanic 
seemed  somehow  or  other  to  be  ill  founded:  it  was  in  such  marked 
contrast  to  the  general  enthusiasm.  What  had  possessed  this  im- 
becile pack?  Why  was  it  raging?  It  saw  the  enemy,  the  hang- 
man, right  there  before  it,  immune  to  the  law,  dressed  in  civilian 
clothes,  and  yet  it  was  acting  as  though  the  Messiah  had  come  to 
town  on  an  extra  train! 

Jason  Philip  had  the  feeling  that  Bismarck  was  looking  straight 
at  him.  He  fancied  that  the  fearfully  tall  man  with  the  unusu- 
ally small  head  and  the  enormously  blue  eyes  had  taken  offence  at 
his  silence.  He  feared  some  one  had  told  him  all  about  his  po- 
litical beliefs. 

The  scornful  smile  died  away.  Jason  Philip  detected  a  luke- 
warm impotency  creeping  over  his  body.  The  sweat  of  solicitude 
trickled  down  across  his  forehead.  Involuntarily  he  kneed  his  way 
closer  to  the  edge  of  the  platform,  threw  out  his  chest,  jerked  his 
hat  from  his  head,  opened  his  mouth,  and  cried:  "Hurrah!" 

He  cried  hurrah.  The  Prince  turned  his  face  from  him,  and 
looked  in  another  direction. 

But  Jason  Philip  had  cried  hurrah. 

He  sneaked  home  shaking  with  shame.  He  drew  his  slippers, 
"For  the  tired  Man — Consolation,"  on  his  feet.  They  had  become 
quite  worn  in  the  course  of  his  tempestuous  life.  He  lay  down  on 
the  sofa  with  his  face  to  the  wall,  his  back  to  the  window  and 
against  the  world. 


THE  PROMETHEAN  SYMPHONY  363 


Daniel  had  been  in  Berlin  for  weeks.  He  had  been  living  a 
lonely  life  on  the  east  side  of  the  gigantic  city.  One  of  the 
managers  of  Philander  and  Sons  came  to  see  him.  He  returned 
the  call,  and  in  the  course  of  two  hours  he  was  surrounded,  con- 
trary to  his  own  will,  by  a  veritable  swarm  of  composers,  directors, 
virtuosos,  and  musical  critics. 

Some  had  heard  of  him;  to  them  he  appeared  to  be  a  remarkable 
man.  They  threw  out  their  nets  to  catch  him,  but  he  slipped 
through  the  meshes.  Unprepared,  however,  as  he  was  for  their 
schemes,  he  could  not  help  being  caught  in  time.  He  had  to  give 
an  account  of  himself,  to  unveil  himself.  He  found  himself  under 
obligations,  interested,  and  so  forth,  but  in  the  end  they  could 
not  prevail  against  him:  he  simply  passed  through  them. 

They  laughed  at  his  dialect  and  his  rudeness.  What  drew  them 
to  him  was  his  self-respect;  what  annoyed  them  was  his  secretive- 
ness;  what  they  found  odd  about  him  was  the  fact  that,  try  as 
they  might  to  associate  with  him,  he  would  disappear  entirely 
from  them  for  months  at  a  time. 

A  divorced  young  woman,  a  Jewess  by  the  name  of  Regina 
Sussmann,  fell  in  love  with  him.  She  recognised  in  Daniel  an 
elemental  nature.  The  more  he  avoided  her  the  more  persistent 
she  became.  At  times  it  made  him  feel  good  to  come  once  again 
into  intimate  association  with  a  woman,  to  hear  her  bright  voice, 
her  step  more  delicate,  her  breathing  more  ardent  than  that  of  men. 
But  he  could  not  trust  Regina  Sussmann;  she  seemed  to  know  too 
much.  There  was  nothing  of  the  plant-like  about  her,  and  with- 
out that  characteristic  any  woman  appealed  to  him  as  being  un- 
formed and  uncultured. 

One  winter  day  she  came  to  see  him  in  his  barren  hall  room  in 
Greifswald  Street.  She  sat  down  at  the  piano  and  began  to 
improvise.  At  first  it  was  all  like  a  haze  to  him.  Suddenly  he 
was  struck  by  her  playing.  What  he  heard  made  a  half  disagree- 
able, half  painful  impression  on  him.  He  seemed  to  be  familiar 
with  the  piece.  She  was  playing  motifs  from  his  quartette,  his 
"Eleanore  Quartette"  as  he  had  called  it.  It  came  out  that 
Regina  Sussmann  had  been  present  at  the  concert  given  in  Leipzig 
three  years  ago  when  the  quartette  was  performed. 

After  a  painful  pause  Regina  began  to  ask  some  questions  that 
cut  him  to  the  very  heart.  She  wanted  to  know  what  relation, 
if  any,  the  composition  bore  to  actual  life.  She  was  trying  to  lift 


364  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

the  veil  from  his  unknown  fate.  He  thrust  her  from  him.  Then 
he  felt  sorry  for  her:  he  began  to  speak,  with  some  hesistation,  of 
his  symphony.  There  was  something  bewitching,  enchanting  in 
the  woman's  passionate  silence  and  sympathy.  He  lost  himself, 
forgot  himself,  disclosed  his  heart.  He  built  up  the  work  in  words 
before  her,  pictured  the  seven  movements  like  seven  stairs  in  the 
tower  of  a  temple,  a  glorious  promenade  in  the  upper  spheres,  a 
tragic  storm  with  tragically  cheerful  pauses  of  memory  and  medita- 
tion, all  accompanied  by  laughing  genii  that  adorned  and  crowned 
the  pillars  of  the  structure  of  his  dreams. 

He  went  to  the  piano,  began  playing  the  melancholy  leading 
motif  and  the  two  subsidiary  themes,  counterpointed  them,  ran 
into  lofty  crescendos,  introduced  variations,  modulated  and  sang  at 
the  same  «time.  The  pupils  of  his  eyes  became  distended  until 
they  shone  behind  his  glasses  like  seas  of  green  fire.  Regina 
Sussmann  fell  on  her  knees  by  the  piano.  It  may  be  that  she  was 
so  affected  by  his  playing  that  she  could  not  act  otherwise ;  and 
it  may  be  that  she  wished  thereby  to  give  him  visible  proof  of  her 
respect  and  adoration.  All  of  a  sudden  the  woman  became  repul- 
sive to  him.  The  unleashed  longing  of  her  eyes  filled  him  with 
disgust.  Her  kneeling  position  appealed  to  him  as  a  gesture  of 
mockery  and  ridicule:  a  memory  had  been  desecrated.  He  sprang 
to  his  feet  and  rushed  out  of  the  room,  leaving  her  behind  and 
quite  alone.  He  never  said  a  word;  he  merely  bit  his  lips  in 
anger  and  left.  When  he  came  back  home  late  that  night,  he 
was  afraid  he  might  meet  her  again;  but  she  was  not  there.  Only 
a  letter  lay  on  the  table  by  the  lamp. 

She  wrote  that  she  had  understood  him;  that  she  understood  he 
had  been  living  in  the  past  as  if  in  an  impregnable  fortress,  sur- 
rounded by  shadows  that  were  not  to  be  dispelled  or  disturbed 
by  the  presumption  of  any  living  human  being.  She  remarked 
that  she  had  neither  intention  nor  desire  to  encroach  upon  his 
peace  of  mind,  that  she  was  merely  concerned  for  his  future,  and 
was  wondering  how  he  would  fight  down  his  hunger  of  body 
and  soul. 

"Shameless  wretch,"  cried  Daniel,  "a  spy  and  a  woman!" 

She  remarked,  with  almost  perverse  humility,  that  she  had  recog- 
nised his  greatness,  that  he  was  the  genius  she  had  been  waiting  for, 
and  that  her  one  desire  was  to  serve  him.  That  is,  she  wished 
to  serve  him  at  a  distance,  seeing  that  he  could  not  endure  her 
presence.  She  implored  him  to  grant  her  this  poor  privilege,  not 
merely  for  his  own  sake,  but  for  the  sake  of  humanity  as  well. 


THE  PROMETHEAN  SYMPHONY  365 

Daniel  threw  the  letter  in  the  stove.  In  the  night  he  woke 
up  with  a  burning  desire  for  delicate  contact  with  an  untouched 
woman.  He  dreamed  of  a  smile  on  the  face  of  a  seventeen-year- 
old  girl  innocently  playing  around  him — and  shuddered  at  himself 
and  the  thought  of  himself. 

Shortly  after  this  he  went  to  Dresden,  where  he  had  some 
work  to  do  in  the  Royal  library. 

People  came  to  him  anxious  to  place  themselves  at  his  service. 
Many  signs  told  him  that  Regina  Sussmann  was  making  fervent 
propaganda  for  him. 

One  day  he  received  a  letter  from  a  musical  society  in  Magde- 
burg, asking  him  to  give  a  concert  there.  He  hesitated  for  a  long 
while,  and  then  agreed  to  accede  to  their  wish.  Outwardly  it 
could  not  be  called  an  unusually  successful  evening,  but  his  auditors 
felt  his  power.  People  with  the  thinnest  smattering  of  music 
forgot  themselves  and  became  infatuated  with  his  arms  and  his 
eyes.  An  uncertain,  undetermined  happiness  which  he  brought  to 
the  hearts  of  real  musicians  carried  him  further  along  on  his 
career.  For  two  successive  winters  he  directed  concerts  in  the 
provincial  towns  of  North  Germany.  He  was  the  first  to  accustom 
the  people  to  strictly  classical  programmes.  It  is  rare  that  the 
first  in  any  enterprise  of  this  kind  reaps  the  gratitude  of  those 
who  pay  to  hear  him.  Had  he  not  desisted  with  such  Puritanical 
severity  from  feeding  the  people  on  popular  songs,  opera  selections, 
and  favourite  melodies,  his  activity  would  have  been  much  better 
rewarded.  As  it  was,  his  name  was  mentioned  with  respect,  but  he 
passed  through  the  streets  unacclaimed. 

Regina  Sussmann  was  always  on  hand  when  he  gave  a  concert. 
He  knew  it,  even  if  he  did  not  see  her.  At  times  he  caught  sight 
of  her  sitting  in  the  front  row.  She  never  approached  him. 
Articles  redolent  with  adulation  appeared  in  the  papers  about  him: 
it  was  manifest  that  she  had  been  influential  in  having  them 
written.  Once  he  met  her  on  the  steps  of  a  hotel.  She  stopped 
and  cast  her  eyes  to  the  ground;  she  was  pale.  He  passed  by  her. 
Again  he  was  filled  with  longing  to  come  into  intimate  contact 
with  an  untouched  woman.  Was  his  heart  already  hungry,  as  she 
had  predicted?  He  bit  his  lips,  and  worked  throughout  the  whole 
night.  He  felt  that  he  was  being  fearfully  endangered  by  the 
prosy  insipidity  of  the  age  and  the  world  he  was  living  in.  But 
could  he  not  escape  the  terrors  of  such  without  having  recourse  to 
a  woman?  The  shadows  receded,  enveloped  in  sorrow,  Gertrude 
and  Elcanore,  wrapped  in  the  embrace  of  sisters. 


366  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

"Don't!"  they  cried.  He  saw  at  once  that  his  provincial  con- 
certs were  leading  him  to  false  goals,  enflaming  false  ambitions, 
robbing  him  of  his  strength.  He  no  longer  found  it  possible  to 
endure  the  sight  of  brilliantly  lighted  halls,  and  the  over-dressed 
people  who  came  empty  and  left  untransformed.  It  all  seemed 
to  him  like  a  lie.  He  desisted;  he  threw  it  all  overboard  just 
as  the  temptation  was  strongest,  just  as  the  Berlin  Philharmonic 
invited  him  to  give  a  concert  of  his  own  works  in  its  hall. 

He  had  suddenly  disappeared.  In  less  than  three  months  his 
name  had  become  a  saga. 

VI 

He  spent  the  summer,  autumn,  and  winter  of  1 893  wandering 
around.  Now  he  was  in  a  remote  Thuringian  village,  now  in  some 
town  in  the  Rhon  region,  now  in  the  mountains  of  Saxony,  now 
in  a  fishing  village  on  the  Baltic.  Throughout  the  day  he  worked 
on  his  manuscripts,  in  the  evening  he  composed.  No  one  except 
the  members  of  the  firm  of  Philander  and  Sons  knew  where  he 
was.  He  did  not  dare  hide  himself  from  the  people  who  were 
sending  him  the  cheque  at  the  end  of  the  month. 

He  gradually  became  so  unaccustomed  to  talking  that  it  was 
only  with  difficulty  that  he  could  ask  a  hotel-keeper  about  the  price 
of  his  room.  This  unrelieved  silence  chiselled  his  lips  into 
ghastly  sharpness. 

He  never  heard  from  his  mother  or  his  children.  He  seemed 
to  have  forgotten  that  there  were  human  beings  living  who  thought 
of  him  with  affection  and  anxiety. 

The  only  messages  he  received  from  the  world  were  letters  that 
were  forwarded  to  him  at  intervals  of  from  four  to  five  weeks 
by  the  musical  firm  in  Mayence.  These  letters  were  written  by 
Regina  Sussmann,  though  they  were  not  signed  in  her  name:  the 
signature  at  the  close  of  each  one  was  "The  Swallow."  She 
addressed  Daniel  by  the  familiar  Du,  and  not  by  the  more  conven- 
tional and  polite  Sie. 

She  told  him  of  her  life,  wrote  of  the  books  she  had  read,  the 
people  she  had  met,  and  gave  him  her  views  on  music.  Her 
communications  became  in  time  indispensable  to  him;  he  was 
touched  by  her  fidelity;  he  was  pleased  that  she  did  not  use  her 
own  name.  She  had  a  remarkable  finesse  and  power  of  expression, 
and  however  ungenuine  and  artificial  she  may  have  appealed  to 
him  in  personal  association,  everything  she  wrote  seemed  to  him 


THE  PROMETHEAN  SYMPHONY  367 

to  be  natural  and  convincing.  She  never  expressed  a  wish  that 
he  do  something  impossible  and  never  uttered  a  complaint.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  was  a  passion  of  the  intelligence  about  her 
that  was  quite  new  to  him;  she  was  unlike  the  women  he  had 
known.  And  there  was  a  fervour  and  certainty  in  her  apprecia- 
tion of  his  being  before  which  he  bowed  as  at  the  sound  of  a 
higher  voice. 

Though  he  never  answered  her  letters,  he  looked  forward  to 
receiving  them,  and  became  impatient  if  one  were  overdue.  He 
often  thought  of  the  swallow  when  he  would  step  to  the  window 
on  a  dark  night.  He  thought  of  her  as  an  all-seeing  spirit  that 
hovered  in  the  air.  The  swallow — that  was  fraught  with  meaning 
— the  restless,  delicate,  swift-flying  swallow.  And  in  his  mind's 
eye  he  saw  the  swallow  that  hovered  over  ^Egydius  Place  when 
Eberhard  came  to  take  him  up  to  the  room  with  the  withered 
flowers. 

He  wrote  to  Philippina:  "Decorate  my  graves.  Buy  two  wreaths, 
and  lay  them  on  the  graves." 

"You  must  mount  to  the  clouds,  Daniel,  otherwise  you  are 
lost,"  was  one  passage  in  one  of  the  letters  from  the  Swallow. 
Another,  much  longer,  ran:  "As  soon  as  you  feel  one  loneliness 
creeping  over  you,  you  must  hasten  into  another,  an  unknown  one. 
If  your  path  seems  blocked,  you  must  storm  the  hedges  before 
you.  If  an  arm  surrounds  you,  you  must  tear  yourself  loose,  even 
though  it  cost  blood  and  tears.  You  must  leave  men  behind  and 
move  above  them;  you  dare  not  become  a  citizen;  you  dare  not 
allow  yourself  to  be  taken  up  with  things  that  are  dear  to  you; 
you  must  have  no  companion,  neither  man  nor  maid.  Time  must 
hover  over  you  cold  and  quiet.  Let  your  heart  be  encased  in 
bronze,  for  music  is  a  flame  that  breaks  through  and  consumes  all 
there  is  in  the  man  who  created  it,  except  the  stuff  the  gods  have 
forged  about  their  chosen  son." 

Why  should  the  picture  of  this  red-haired  Jewess,  from  whom 
Daniel  had  fled  in  terror,  not  have  vanished?  There  was  a  Muse 
such  as  poets  dream  of!  "Jewess,  wonderful  Jewess,"  thought 
Daniel,  and  this  word — Jewess — took  on  for  him  a  meaning,  a 
power,  and  a  prophetic  flight  all  its  own. 

"The  work,  Daniel  Nothafft,  the  work,"  wrote  this  second  Rahel 
in  another  letter,  "the  rape  of  Prometheus,  when  are  you  going  to 
lay  it  at  the  feet  of  impoverished  humanity?  The  age  is  like 
wine  that  tastes  of  the  earth;  your  work  must  be  the  filter.  The 
age  is  like  an  epileptic  body  convulsed  with  agonies;  your  work 


368  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

must  be  the  healing  hand  that  one  lays  on  the  diseased  brow. 
When  will  you  finally  give,  O  parsimonious  mortal?  when  ripen, 
tree?  when  flood  the  valley,  stream?" 

But  the  tree  was  in  no  hurry  to  cast  off  the  ripened  fruit;  the 
stream  found  that  the  way  to  the  sea  was  long  and  tortuous;  it 
had  to  break  through  mountains  and  wash  away  the  rocks.  Oh, 
those  nights  of  torment  when  an  existing  form  crashed  and  fell 
to  the  earth  in  pieces!  Oh,  those  hundreds  of  laborious  nights  in 
which  there  was  no  sleep,  nothing  but  the  excited  raging  of  many 
voices!  Those  grey  mornings  on  which  the  sun  shone  on  tattered 
leaves  and  a  distorted  face,  a  face  full  of  suffering  that  was  always 
old  and  yet  new!  And  those  moonlight  nights,  when  some  one 
moved  along  singing,  not  as  one  sings  with  joy,  but  as  the  heretics 
who  sat  on  the  martyr  benches  of  the  Inquisition!  Then  there 
were  the  rainy  nights,  the  stormy  nights,  the  nights  when  it 
snowed,  and  when  he  chased  after  the  phantom  of  a  melody  that 
was  already  half  his  own,  and  half  an  incorporeal  thing  wander- 
ing around  in  boundless  space  under  the  stars. 

Each  landscape  became  a  pale  vision:  bush  and  grass  and  flower, 
like  spun  yarn  seen  in  a  fever,  the  people  who  passed  by,  and 
the  clouds  fibrillated  above  the  forests  were  of  one  and  the  same 
constituency.  Nothing  was  tangible;  the  palate  lost  its  sense  of 
taste,  the  finger  its  sense  of  touch.  Bad  weather  was  welcome;  it 
subdued  the  noises,  made  men  quieter.  Cursed  be  the  mill  that 
clappers,  the  carpenter  who  drives  the  nails,  the  teamster  who  calls 
to  his  jaded  pair,  the  laughter  of  children,  the  croaking  of  frogs, 
the  twittering  of  birds!  An  insensate  man  looks  down  upon  the 
scene,  one  who  is  deaf  and  dumb,  one  who  would  snatch  all  cloth- 
ing and  decorations  from  the  world,  to  the  end  that  neither  colour 
nor  splendour  of  any  description  may  divert  his  eye,  one  who 
mounts  to  heaven  at  night  to  steal  the  eternal  fire,  and  who  burrows 
in  the  graves  of  the  dead  by  day — an  outcast. 

In  the  beginning  of  spring,  he  started  on  the  third  movement, 
an  andante  with  variations.  It  expressed  the  gruesome  peace  that 
hovered  over  Eleanore's  slumbering  face  one  night  before  her 
death.  The  springs  within  him  were  all  suddenly  dried  up;  he 
could  not  tell  why  his  hand  was  paralysed,  his  fancy  immobile. 

One  evening  he  returned  from  a  long  journey  to  Arnstein,  a 
little  place  in  Lower  Franconia,  where  he  had  then  pitched  his 
tent.  He  was  living  in  the  house  of  a  seamstress,  a  poor  widow, 
and  as  he  came  into  the  room  he  noticed  her  ten-year-old  daughter 
standing  by  the  open  box  in  which  he  had  kept  the  mask  of 


THE  PROMETHEAN  SYMPHONY  369 

Zingarelia.  Out  of  a  perfectly  harmless  curiosity  the  child  had 
removed  the  lid,  and  was  standing  bewitched  at  the  unexpected 
sight. 

When  Daniel's  eyes  fell  on  her,  she  was  frightened;  her  body 
shook  with  fear;  she  tried  to  run  away.  "No,  no,  stay!"  cried 
Daniel.  He  felt  the  emaciated  body,  the  timidly  quivering  figure, 
and  a  distant  memory  sunk  its  claws  deep  into  his  breast.  The 
mouth  of  the  mask  seemed  to  speak;  the  cheeks  and  forehead  shone 
with  a  brilliant  whiteness.  And  as  he  turned  his  eyes  away  there 
was  a  little  elf  dancing  over  him;  and  this  little  elf  aroused  a 
guilty  unrest  in  his  heart. 

VII 

Philippina  would  not  permit  little  Agnes  to  play  with  other 
children. 

One  day  the  child  went  out  on  to  the  square,  and  stood  and 
watched  some  other  children  playing  a  game  known  as  "Tailor, 
lend  me  the  scissors."  She  was  much  pleased  at  the  sight  of  them, 
as  they  ran  from  tree  to  tree  and  laughed.  She  would  have  been 
only  too  happy  to  join  them,  but  no  one  thought  of  asking  the 
pale,  shy  little  creature  to  take  part.  Philippina,  seeing  her,  rushed 
out  like  a  fury,  and  cried  in  her  very  meanest  voice:  "You  come 
back  here  in  the  house,  or  I'll  maul  you  until  your  teeth  will 
rattle  in  your  mouth  for  three  days  to  come!" 

Philippina  also  disliked  to  have  Jordan  pay  any  attention  to 
Agnes.  If  he  did  not  notice  that  he  was  making  her  angry  by 
talking  with  the  child,  she  would  begin  to  sing,  first  gently,  and 
then  more  and  more  loudly.  If  this  did  not  drive  the  old  man 
away,  she  would  unload  some  terrific  abuse  on  him,  and  keep  at 
it  until  he  would  get  up,  sigh,  and  leave.  He  did  not  dare 
antagonise  her,  for  if  he  did,  she  would  penalise  him  by  giving 
him  poor  food  and  reduced  portions.  And  he  suffered  greatly 
from  hunger.  He  was  making  only  a  few  pennies  a  week,  and  had 
to  save  every  bit  of  it,  if  possible,  so  as  to  defray  the  expenses 
he  was  incurring  while  working  on  his  invention. 

He  had  unbounded  faith  in  his  invention;  his  credulity  became 
stronger  and  stronger  as  the  months  rolled  by.  He  could  not  be 
discouraged  by  seeming  failure.  He  was  convinced,  on  the  con- 
trary, that  each  failure  merely  brought  him  so  much  nearer  the 
de?ired  goal. 

He  said  to  Philippina:  "Why  is  it  that  you  object  to  my  playing 


370  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

once  in  a  while  with  my  little  grand-daughter?  It  gives  me  so 
much  pleasure;  it  diverts  me;  it  takes  my  mind  off  of  my  troubles." 

"Crazy  nonsense,"  replied  Philippina.  "Agnes  has  had  trouble 
enough  with  her  father.  Her  grandfather?  whew!  That  beats  me!" 

Another  time  the  old  man  said:  "Suppose  we  make  an  agree- 
ment: let  me  have  the  child  a  half-hour  each  day,  and  in  return 
for  that  I'll  run  your  errands  down  town." 

Philippina:  "I'll  run  my  own  errands.  Agnes  belongs  to  me. 
That  settles  it." 

And  yet  Philippina  was  in  an  especially  good  humour  about 
this  time.  Benjamin  Dorn,  like  Herr  Zittel,  had  left  the  Pru- 
dentia,  and  obtained  a  position  with  the  Excelsior.  He  was  taking 
unusual  interest  in  Philippina.  In  a  dark  hour,  Philippina  had 
told  her  friend,  Frau  Hadebusch,  that  she  had  saved  a  good  deal 
of  money,  and,  equipped  with  this  bit  of  earthly  wisdom,  Frau 
Hadebusch  had  gone  to  the  Methodist,  told  him  all  about  it,  and 
put  very  serious  matrimonial  ideas  in  his  head. 

Benjamin  Dorn  took  infinite  pains  to  gain  Philippina's  good 
graces.  He  was,  to  be  sure,  somewhat  dismayed  at  having  her 
blasphemous  system  of  theology  dinned  into  his  ears.  He  shook 
his  head  wearily  when  she  called  him  a  sky-pilot  and  declared 
right  out  that  all  this  sanctimonious  stuff  was  damned  rot,  and  that 
the  main  thing  was  to  have  a  fat  wallet.  In  this  philosophy  Frau 
Hadebusch  was  with  her  to  the  last  exclamation  point.  She  had 
told  Benjamin  Dorn  that  a  doughtier,  bonnier,  more  capable 
person  than  Fraulein  Schimmelweis  was  not  to  be  found  on  this 
earth,  and  that  the  two  were  as  much  made  for  each  other  as  oil 
and  vinegar  for  a  salad.  She  said:  "You  simply  ought  to  see  the 
dresses  the  girl  has  and  how  she  can  fix  herself  up  when  she  wants 
to  go  out.  Moreover,,  she  comes  of  a  good  family.  In  short, 
any  man  who  could  get  her  would  be  a  subject  for  real  con- 
gratulations." 

To  Philippina  Frau  Hadebusch  said:  "Dorn — he  can  write  as 
no  one  else  on  this  earth.  Oh>  you  ought  to  see  him  swing  a  pen! 
He  limps  a  little,  but  what  of  h?  Just  think  how  many  people 
go  around  on  two  sound  legs,  bnt  have  their  heads  all  full  of 
rubbish!  But  Doru!  He's  whole  cloth  and  a  yard  wide!  He's 
as  soft  as  prune  juice.  Why,  when  a  dog  barks  at  him,  he  gives 
the  beast  a  lump  of  sugar.  That's  the  kind  of  a  man  he  is." 

In  October  Benjamin  Dorn  and  Philippina  went  to  the  church 
fair,  and  natural!^  took  Agnes  along  Benjamin  Dorn  knew  what 
was  expected  of  Noi.  He  had  Philippina  take  two  rides  on  the 


THE  PROMETHEAN  SYMPHONY  371 

meriy-go-round,  paid  her  way  into  the  cabinet  of  wax  figures,  and 
took  a  chance  on  the  lottery.  It  was  a  blank.  He  then  explained 
to  Philippina  that  it  was  immoral  to  have  anything  to  do  with 
lotteries,  and  bought  her  a  bag  of  ginger  snaps;  and  that  was  solid 
pleasure. 

Philippina  acted  very  nicely.  She  laughed  when  nothing  amus- 
ing had  taken  place,  rolled  her  eyes,  spoke  with  puckered  lips, 
shook  her  hips  when  she  walked,  and  never  lost  a  chance  to  show 
her  learning.  As  they  were  coming  home  on  the  train,  she  said 
she  felt  she  would  like  to  ride  in  a  chaise,  but  there  would  have 
to  be  two  horses  and  a  coachman  with  a  tile  hat.  Benjamin  Dorn 
replied  that  that  was  not  an  impossible  wish,  suggesting  at  the  same 
time  in  his  best  brand  of  juvenile  roguishness  that  there  was  a 
certain  solemn  ceremony  that  he  would  not  think  of  celebrating 
without  having  a  vehicle  such  as  she  had  described.  Philippina 
giggled,  and  said:  "Oi,  oi,  you're  all  right."  Whereupon  Benjamin 
Dorn,  grinning  with  embarrassment,  looked  down. 

Then  they  took  leave  of  each  other,  for  Agnes  had  fallen  asleep 
in  Philippina's  arms. 

How  Philippina  actually  felt  about  the  attention  he  was  show- 
ing her  would  be  extremely  difficult  to  tell,  though  she  acted  as 
if  she  felt  honoured  and  flattered.  Benjamin  Dorn  was  by  no 
means  certain  of  himself.  Frau  Hadebusch  did  all  she  could  to 
bring  Philippina  around,  but  every  time  she  made  a  fresh  onslaught 
Philippina  put  her  off. 

But  Philippina  had  never  sung  as  she  had  been  singing  recently, 
nor  had  she  ever  been  so  light  and  nimble  of  foot.  Every  day 
she  put  on  her  Sunday  dress  and  trimmed  it  with  her  choicest 
ribbons.  She  washed  her  hands  with  almond  soap,  and  combed 
her  hair  before  the  mirror.  Bangs  had  gone  out  of  fashion,  so 
she  built  her  hair  up  into  a  tower  and  looked  like  a  Chinese. 

She  visited  Herr  Carovius  occasionally,  and  always  found  him 
alone,  for  Dorothea  Doderlein  had  been  sent  by  her  father  to 
Munich  to  perfect  herself  in  her  art.  In  broken  words,  with 
blinking  eyes,  from  a  grinning  mouth  and  out  of  a  dumb  soul,  she 
told  Herr  Carovius  all  about  her  affair  with  Benjamin  Dorn,  evi- 
dently believing  that  he  was  all  fire  and  flame  to  know  how  she 
was  getting  along  and  what  she  had  in  fe/to.  Herr  Carovius  had 
long  since  grown  sick  and  tired  of  her,  though  he  did  not  show 
her  the  door.  He  had  reached  the  point  where  he  heaved  a  sigh 
of  relief  when  he  heard  a  human  voice,  where  he  began  to  dread 
the  stillness  that  ruled  supreme  within  his  four  walls.  No  one 


372  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

came  to  see  him,  no  one  spoke  to  him,  and  he  in  turn  no  longer 
had  the  courage  to  speak  to  any  one.  His  arrogance  of  former 
days  had  died  a  difficult  death,  and  now  he  saw  no  way  of  making 
friends.  If  he  went  to  the  cafe,  there  was  no  one  there  whom 
he  knew.  The  brethren  of  the  Vale  of  Tears  had  been  scattered 
to  the  four  corners  of  the  earth;  a  new  generation  was  having  its 
fling;  new  customs  were  being  introduced,  new  topics  discussed, 
and  he  was  old. 

He  found  it  hard  to  get  along  without  Dorothea.  He  counted 
the  days,  waiting  for  her  to  return.  He  never  opened  the  piano, 
because  all  music,  and  especially  the  music  he  loved,  caused  a 
melancholy  depression  to  arise  that  rilled  the  room  with  miasma. 

The  Nero  of  our  day  was  suffering  from  Cssar  sadness.  The 
private  citizen  had  sunk  to  the  very  bottom  of  the  ditch  which 
he  himself  had  dug  with  the  idea  of  burying  all  that  was  new 
and  joyful,  and  all  winged  creatures  in  it. 

The  worst  of  it  all  was  that  he  had  nothing  to  do,  and  no 
brain  racking  could  devise  a  position  he  could  fill.  The  world 
went  on  its  way,  progress  was  made,  and,  strangely  enough,  it  was 
made  without  his  criticism,  his  adulation,  his  opinions,  or  his  crepe- 
hanging. 

Philippina  was  annoyed  at  the  grudging  squints  cast  at  her  by 
the  old  stay-at-home;  her  visits  became  rarer  and  rarer.  She  did 
not  feel  like  opening  her  heart  to  Frau  Hadebusch,  for  she  did 
not  appeal  to  her  as  a  disinterested  party.  This  completed  her  list 
of  friends;  she  was  obliged  to  restrain  her  impatience  and  excite- 
ment. 

It  was  Christmas.  On  Christmas  Eve  they  had  bought  a  tree 
for  Agnes,  trimmed  it,  and  lighted  it  with  candles.  Agnes's 
Christmas  gifts  were  placed  under  the  tree:  a  big  piece  of  ginger- 
bread, a  basket  with  apples  and  nuts,  and  a  cheap  doll.  For  Old 
Jordan  she  had  bought  a  pair  of  boots  which  he  badly  needed.  He 
had  been  going  around  on  his  uppers  since  autumn. 

Jordan  was  sitting  by  the  door  holding  his  boots  on  his  knees. 
Agnes  looked  at  the  doll  with  unhappy  eyes;  she  did  not  dare 
touch  it.  After  gazing  for  a  while  into  the  light  of  the  fluttering 
candles,  Jordan  said:  "I  thank  you,  Philippina,  I  thank  you.  You 
art  a  real  benefactress.  I  also  thank  you  for  remembering  the 
child.  It  is  a  paltry  makeshift  you  have  bought  there  at  the 
bazaar,  but  any  one  who  gives  gifts  to  children  deserves  the  reward 
of  Heaven,  and  in  such  giving  we  do  not  weigh  the  value  or  count 
the  cost." 


THE  PROMETHEAN  SYMPHONY  373 

"Don't  whine  all  the  time  so!"  shrieked  Philippina.  She  was 
chewing  her  finger  nails,  hardly  able  to  conceal  her  embarrassment. 
Frau  Hadebusch  had  told  her  that  Benjamin  Dorn  was  coming 
around  that  evening  to  make  a  formal  proposal  of  marriage. 

"Just  wait,  Agnes,  just  wait!"  continued  old  Jordan,  "you'll 
soon  get  to  see  a  wonder  of  a  doll.  A  few  short  years,  and  the 
world  will  be  astonished.  You  are  going  to  be  the  first  to  see  it 
when  it  is  finished.  You'll  be  the  first,  little  'Agnes,  just  wait. 
What  have  we  got  to  eat  on  this  holy  evening?"  asked  Jordan, 
turning  with  fear  and  trembling  to  Philippina. 

"Cold  hash  and  broiled  meal-beetles,"  said  Philippina  scornfully. 

"And  .  .  .  and  ...  no  letter  from  Daniel?"  he  asked  in  a 
sad  voice,  "nothing,  nothing  at  all?" 

Philippina  shrugged  her  sKoulders.  The  old  man  got  up  and 
tottered  to  his  room. 

A  little  later  Philippina  heard  some  one  stumbling  around  in 
the. 'hall,  and  then  the  bell  rang.  "Open  the  door,"  she  said  to 
Agnes,  who  did  as  she  was  told  and  returned  with  Benjamin  Dorn. 
The  Methodist  wore  a  black  suit,  and  in  his  hand  he  had  a  black 
felt  hat  that  was  as  flat  as  a  pancake.  He  bowed  to  Philippina, 
and  asked  if  he  was  disturbing  any  one.  Philippina  pushed  a  chair 
over  to  him.  He  sat  down  quite  circumstantially,  and  laughed  a 
hollow  laugh.  As  Philippina  was  as  silent  as  the  tomb  and  looked 
at  him  so  tensely,  he  began  to  speak. 

First  he  expatiated  on  the  general  advantages  of  a  married  life, 
and  then  remarked  that  what  he  personally  wished  first  of  all  was 
to  be  able  to  take  a  good,  true  woman  into  his  own  life  as  his 
wife.  He  said  that  he  had  gone  through  a  long  struggle  over  the 
matter,  but  God  had  finally  shown  him  the  light  and  pointed  the 
way.  He  no  longer  hesitated,  after  this  illumination  from  above, 
to  offer  Fraulein  Schimmelweis  his  heart  and  his  hand  forever 
and  a  day,  insist  though  he  must  that  she  give  the  matter  due 
consideration,  in  the  proper  Christian  spirit,  before  taking  the 
all-important  step. 

Philippina  was  restless;  she  rocked  back  and  forth,  first  on  one 
foot  and  then  on  another — and  then  burst  out  laughing.  She 
bent  over  and  laughed  violently.  "No,  you  poor  simpleton,  what 
you  want  is  my  money,  hey?  Be  honest!  Out  with  it!  You 
want  my  money,  don't  you?" 

Her  anger  grew  as  Benjamin  Dorn  sat  and  looked  on,  his  asinine 
embarrassment  increasing  with  each  second  of  silence.  "Listen! 
You'd  like  to  git  your  fingers  on  it,  wouldn't  you?  Money — it 


374  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

would  taste  good,  wouldn't  it?  You  think  I'm  crazy?  Scrape  a 
few  coppers  together  and  lose  my  mind  and  marry  some  poor  fool, 
and  let  him  loaf  around  and  live  on  me.  Nothing  doin'!  They 
ain't  no  man  iivin'  what  can  catch  Philippina  Schimmelweis  so 
easy  as  all  that.  She  knows  a  thing  or  two  about  men,  she  does. 
D'ye  hear  me!  Get  out!"  She  sawed  the  air  with  her  arms  like 
a  mad  woman,  and  showed  him  the  door. 

Benjamin  Dorn  rose  to  his  feet,  stuttered  something  unintel- 
ligible, moved  backwards  toward  the  door,  reached  it,  and  left  the 
place  with  such  pronounced  speed  that  Philippina  once  again  broke 
out  in  a  shrill,  piercing  laughter.  "Come  here,  Agnes,"  she  said, 
sat  down  on  the  step  in  the  corner,  and  took  the  child  on  her  lap. 

She  was  silent  for  a  long  while;  the  child  was  afraid  to  speak. 
Both  looked  at  the  lights  on  the  Christmas  tree.  "Let  us  sing 
something,"  said  Philippina.  She  began  with  a  hoarse,  bass  voice, 
"Stille  Nacht,  heilige  Nacht,"  and  Agnes  joined  in  with  her  high, 
spiritless  notes. 

Another  pause  followed  after  they  had  finished  singing. 

"Where  is  my  father?"  asked  Agnes  suddenly,  without  looking 
at  Philippina.  It  sounded  as  if  she  had  waited  for  years  for  an 
opportunity  to  ask  this  question. 

Philippina's  face  turned  ashen  pale;  she  gritted  her  teeth. 
"Your  father,  he's  loafing  around  somewhere  in  the  country," 
replied  Philippina,  and  blew  out  one  of  the  candles  that  had 
burned  down  and  was  ready  to  set  the  twig  on  fire.  "He's  done 
with  women,  it  seems,  but  you  can't  tell.  He  strums  the  music 
box  and  smears  good  white  paper  full  of  crow-feet  and  pot-hooks. 
A  person  can  rot,  and  little  does  he  worry."  Whereat  she  set  the 
child  on  the  floor,  hastened  over  to  the  window,  opened  it,  and 
put  her  head  out  as  if  she  were  on  the  point  of  choking  with 
the  heat. 

She  leaned  out  over  the  snow-covered  window  sill. 

"I'm  getting  cold,"  said  Agnes;  but  Philippina  never  heard  her. 


Daniel  wrote  to  Eberhard  and  Sylvia  asking  them  if  he  might 
visit  them.  He  thought:  "There  are  friends;  perhaps  I  need 
friends  again." 

He  received  a  note  in  a  strange,  secretarial  hand  informing  him 
that  the  Baroness  was  indeed  very  sorry  but  she  could  not  receive 
him  at  Siegmundshof :  she  was  in  child-bed.  She  sent  her  best 


THE  PROMETHEAN  SYMPHONY  375 

greetings,  and  told  him  that  the  newest  born  was  getting  along 
splendidly,  as  well  as  his  brother  who  was  now  three  years  old. 

"Everywhere  I  turn,  children  are  growing  up,"  thought  Daniel, 
and  packed  his  trunk  and  started  south  as  slowly  as  he  could  go, 
so  slowly  indeed  that  it  seemed  as  if  he  were  approaching  a  goal 
he  was  afraid  to  reach  and  yet  had  to. 

He  arrived  in  Nuremberg  one  evening  in  April.  As  he  entered 
the  room,  Philippina  struck  her  hands  together  with  a  loud  bang, 
and  stood  as  if  rooted  to  the  floor. 

Agnes  looked  at  her  father  shyly.  She  had  grown  slim  and 
tall  far  beyond  her  age. 

Old  Jordan  came  down.  "You  don't  look  well,  Daniel,"  he  said, 
and  seemed  never  to  let  go  of  his  hand.  "Let  us  hope  that  you 
are  going  to  stay  home  now." 

"I  don't  know,"  replied  Daniel,  staring  absent-mindedly  around 
the  walls.  "I  don't  know." 

On  the  third  day  he  was  seized  with  a  quite  unusual  sense  of 
fear  and  anxiety.  He  felt  that  he  had  made  a  mistake;  that  he 
had  lost  his  way;  that  something  was  driving  him  to  another  place. 
He  went  into  the  kitchen.  Philippina  was  cooking  potato  noodles 
in  lard;  they  smelt  good. 

"I  am  going  to  Eschenbach,"  he  said,  to  his  own  astonishment, 
for  the  decision  to  do  so  had  come  with  the  assertion. 

Philippina  jerked  the  pan  from  the/ stove;  the  flames  leaped  up. 
"You  can  go  to  Hell,  so  far  as  I'm  concerned,"  she  said  in  a  furious 
rage.  With  the  light  from  the  fire  flaring  up  through  the  open 
top  of  the  stove  and  reflected  in  her  face,  she  looked  like  a  veritable 
witch. 

Daniel  gazed  at  her  questioningly.  "What  is  the  matter  with 
Agnes?"  he  asked  after  a  while.  "The  child  seems  to  try  to 
avoid  me." 

"You'll  find  out  what's  the  matter  with  her,"  said  Philippina 
spitefully,  and  placed  the  pan  on  the  stove  again.  "She  don't 
swallow  people  whole." 

Daniel  left  the  kitchen. 

"He  is  going  over  to  sec  his  bastard,  the  damned  scoundrel," 
murmured  Philippina.  She  crouched  down  on  the  kitchen  stool, 
and  gazed  into  space. 

The  potato  noodles  burned  up. 


376  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

IX 

Daniel  entered  his  mother's  little  house  in  Eschenbach  late  at 
night.  As  soon  as  he  saw  her,  he  knew  that  some  misfortune  had 
taken  place. 

Eva  was  gone.  She  had  disappeared  one  evening  four  weeks 
ago.  A  troupe  of  rope  dancers  had  given  an  exhibition  in  the 
city,  and  it  was  generally  suspected  that  they  had  abducted  the 
child.  The  people  of  Eschenbach  were  still  convinced  of  their 
suspicion  after  the  police  had  rounded  up  the  dancers  without 
finding  a  trace  of  the  child. 

A  general  alarm  had  been  sent  out,  and  investigations  were  being 
made  even  at  the  time  of  Daniel's  arrival.  But  they  were  in  vain; 
it  was  impossible  to  find  the  slightest  clue.  To  the  authorities, 
indeed  to  every  one,  the  case  was  a  hopeless  riddle. 

They  made  a  thorough  search  of  the  forests;  the  canals  were 
drained;  vagabonds  were  cross-questioned.  It  was  all  in  vain;  Eva 
had  apparently  been  spirited  away  in  some  mysterious  fashion. 
Then  the  Mayor  received  an  anonymous  letter  that  read  as  follows: 
"The  child  you  are  looking  for  is  in  safe  keeping.  She  was  not 
forced  to  do  what  she  has  done;  of  her  own  free  will  and  out  of 
love  for  her  art  she  went  off  with  the  people  with  whom  she  is 
at  present.  She  sends  her  grandmother  the  tenderest  of  greetings, 
and  hopes  to  see  her  some  time  again,  after  she  has  attained  to 
what  she  now  has  in  mind." 

To  this  Eva  had  added  in  a  handwriting  which  Marian  Nothafft 
could  be  reasonably  certain  was  her  own:  "This  is  true.  Good-bye, 
grandmother!" 

The  people  who  mourned  with  Marian  the  loss  of  the  child 
were  convinced  that  if  Eva  had  really  written  these  words  herself, 
she  had  been  forced  to  do  it  by  the  kidnappers. 

The  letter  bore  the  postmark  of  a  city  in  the  Rhenish  Palatinate. 
A  telegram  brought  the  reply  that  a  company  of  jugglers  had 
been  there  a  short  while  ago,  but  that  they  had  already  gone.  It 
was  impossible  to  say  in  what  direction,  but  it  was  most  likely 
that  they  had  gone  to  France. 

Marian  was  completely  broken  up.  She  no  longer  had  any 
interest  in  life.  She  did  not  even  manifest  joy  or  pleasure  at 
seeing  Daniel. 

Daniel  in  turn  felt  that  the  brightest  star  had  fallen  from  his 
heaven.  As  soon  as  he  had  really  grasped  the  full  meaning  of  the 
tragedy,  he  went  quietly  into  the  attic  room,  threw  himself  across 


THE  PROMETHEAN  SYMPHONY  377 

the   bed   of   his   lost   daughter,   and   wept.     "Man,   man,   are   you 
weeping  at  last?"  a  voice  seemed  to  call  out  to  him. 

Of  evenings  he  would  sit  with  his  mother,  and  they  would  both 
brood  over  the  loss.  Once  Marian  began  to  speak;  she  talked 
of  Eva.  She  had  always  been  made  uneasy  by  the  child's  love  for 
mimicry  and  shows  of  any  kind.  Long  ago,  she  said,  when  Eva  was 
only  eight  years  old,  a  company  of  comedians  had  come  to  the 
village,  and  Eva  had  taken  a  passionate  interest  in  them.  She 
would  run  around  the  tent  in  which  they  played,  from  early  in 
the  morning  until  late  in  the  evening.  She  had  made  the  acquaint- 
ance of  some  of  them  at  the  time,  and  one  of  them  took  her  along 
to  a  performance.  Whenever  the  circus  came  to  town,  it  was  im- 
possible to  keep  her  in  the  house.  "At  times  I  thought  to  myself, 
there  must  be  gipsy  blood  in  her  veins,"  said  Marian  sadly,. "but 
she  was  such  a  good  and  obedient  child." 

Another  time  she  told  the  following  story.  One  Sunday  in 
spring  she  took  a  walk  with  Eva.  It  had  grown  late,  night  had 
come  on,  and  on  the  return  journey  they  had  to  go  through  the 
forest.  Marian  became  tired,  and  sat  down  on  the  stump  of  a 
tree  to  rest.  The  moon  was  shining,  and  there  was  a  clearing  in 
the  forest  where  they  had  stopped.  All  of  a  sudden  Eva  sprang  up 
and  began  to  dance.  "It  was  marvellous  the  way  she  danced,"  said 
Marian,  at  the  close  of  her  story.  "The  girl's  slender,  delicate 
little  figure  seemed  to  glide  around  on  the  moss  in  the  moonlight 
of  its  own  accord.  It  was  marvellous,  but  my  heart  grew  heavy, 
and  I  thought  to  myself  at  the  time,  she  is  not  going  to  be  with  me 
much  longer." 

Daniel  was  silent.  "Oh,  enchanting  and  enchanted  creature!" 
he  thought,  "heredity  and  destiny!" 

He  remained  with  his  mother  for  three  weeks.  Then  he  began 
to  feel  cramped  and  uneasy.  The  house  and  the  town  both  seemed 
so  small  to  him.  He  left  and  went  to  Vienna,  where  the  custodian 
of  the  Imperial  Institute  had  some  invaluable  manuscripts  for 
him. 

Six  weeks  later  he  received  a  letter  that  had  followed  him  all 
over  south  Europe  informing  him  of  the  death  of  his  mother. 
The  school  teacher  at  Eschenbach  had  written  the  letter,  saying, 
among  other  things,  that  the  aged  woman  had  died  during  the 
night,  suddenly  and  peacefully. 

A  second  letter  followed,  requesting  him  to  state  what  disposi- 
tion should  be  made  of  his  mother's  property.  He  was  asked 
whether  the  house  was  to  be  put  on  the  market.  A  neighbour,  the 


378  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

green  grocer,  nad  expressed  his  willingness  to  look  after  Daniel's 
interests. 

Daniel  wrote  in  reply  that  they  should  do  whatever  seemed  best. 
There  was  a  heavy  mortgage  on  the  house,  and  the  amount  that 
could  reasonably  be  asked  for  it  was  not  large. 

He  retired  to  a  desolate  and  waste  place. 


While  living  in  little  towns  and  villages  on  the  Danube,  Daniel 
completed  the  third  movement  of  \\e  Promethean  symphony. 
When  he  awoke  as  if  from  a  delirious  fever,  it  was  autumn. 

One  morning  in  October  he  heard  a  saint  playing  the  organ.  It 
was  in  the  Church  of  St.  Florian  near  Enns.  The  great  artist 
had  lived  in  former  years  in  the  monastery,  and  now  had  the  habit 
of  coming  back  once  in  a  while  to  hold  communion  with  his  God. 
In  his  rapture,  Daniel  felt  as  if  his  own  crowned  brother  were  at 
the  organ.  He  sat  in  a  corner  and  listened,  meekly  and  with  over- 
whelming delight.  Then  when  a  man  passed  by  him,  a  stooped, 
haggard,  odd-looking  old  fellow  with  a  wrinkled  face  and  dressed 
in  shabby  clothes,  he  was  terror-stricken  at  the  reality,  the  cor- 
poreality of  genius:  he  wondered  whether  he  himself  were  not  a 
ghost. 

The  Swallow  wrote:  "There  is  only  one  who  can  redeem  us: 
the  musician.  The  day  of  founders  of  religion,  builders  of  states, 
military  heroes,  and  discoverers  is  gone.  The  poets  have  only 
words,  and  our  ears  have  grown  tired  of  words,  words,  words.  They 
have  only  pictures  and  figures,  and  our  eyes  are  tired  beholding. 
The  soul's  last  consolation  is  to  be  found  in  music;  of  this  I  am 
certain.  If  there  is  any  one  thing  that  can  make  restitution  for 
the  lost  illusions  of  religious  faith,  provide  us  with  wings,  trans- 
form us,  and  save  us  from  the  abyss  to  which  we  are  rushing  with 
savage  senses,  it  is  music.  Where  are  you,  O  redeemer?  You  are 
wandering  about  over  the  earth,  the  poorest,  the  most  abandoned, 
the  guiltiest  of  men.  When  are  you  going  to  pay  your  debts, 
Daniel  Nothafft?" 

Daniel  spent  seven  months  in  Ravenna,  Ferrara,  Florence,  and 
Pisa.  He  was  looking  for  some  manuscripts  by  Frescobaldi, 
Borghesi,  and  Ercole  Pasquini.  Having  found  the  most  important 
ones  he  could  regard  his  collection  as  complete. 

Men  seemed  to  him  like  puppets,  landscapes  like  paintings  on 
glass.  He  longed  for  forests;  his  dreams  became  disordered. 


THE  PROMETHEAN  SYMPHONY  379 

From  Genoa  he  wandered  on  foot  through  Lombardy  and  across 
the  Alps.  He  slept  on  hard  beds  in  order  to  keep  his  hot  blood 
in  check,  and  lived  on  bread  and  cheese.  His  attacks  of  weakness, 
sometimes  of  complete  exhaustion,  did  not  worry  him  at  first;  he 
paid  no  attention  to  them.  But  in  Augsburg  he  swooned,  falling 
headlong  on  the  street.  He  was  taken  to  a  hospital,  where  he  lay 
lor  three  months  with  typhus.  From  his  window  he  could  see 
the  tall  chimneys  of  factories  and  an  endless  procession  of  wander- 
ing clouds.  It  had  become  winter;  the  ground  was  covered  with 
snow. 

Two  years  after  his  last  visit  he  again  entered  the  house  on 
^gydius  Place.  When  Philippina  saw  him,  so  pale  and  emaciated, 
she  uttered  a  cry  of  horror. 

Agnes  had  grown  still  taller,  thinner,  and  more  serious.  At 
times  when  she  looked  at  her  father  he  felt  like  crying  out  to 
her  in  anger:  "What  do  you  mean  by  your  everlasting  questions?" 
But  he  never  said  a  word  of  this  kind  to  her. 

When  Philippina  saw  that  Daniel  had  returned  as  lonesome  and 
uncommunicative  as  he  was  when  he  went  away,  she  took  it  upon 
herself  to  display  a  great  deal  of  gentleness,  kindness,  sympathy 
in  his  presence.  Old  Jordan  was  living  the  same  life  he  had  been 
living  for  years.  Everything  in  fact  was  just  the  same;  it  seemed 
that  the  household  was  run  according  to  a  prescribed  routine.  It 
seemed  as  if  Daniel  had  been  away,  not  six  years,  but  six  days. 

He  did  not  feel  strong  yet,  but  he  worked  day  and  night.  The 
fourth  movement  of  the  symphony  gave  promise  of  being  a  miracle 
of  polyphony.  Daniel  felt  primeval  existence,  the  original  of  all 
longing,  the  basic  grief  of  the  world  urging  and  pulsing  in  him, 
and  this  he  was  translating  into  the  symphony.  The  eternal 
wanderer  had  arrived  at  the  gates  of  Heaven  and  was  not  admitted. 
Supernal  harmonies  had  borne  him  aloft.  Muffled  drum  beats 
symbolised  his  beseeching  raps  on  closed  doors.  Within  resounded 
the  terrible  "no"  of  the  trumpets.  The  pleading  of  the  violins 
was  in  vain;  in  vain  the  intercession  of  the  one  angel  standing  at 
the  right,  leaning  on  a  harp  without  strings;  in  vain  the  melodious 
chants  of  the  other  angel  at  the  left,  crowned  with  flowers  and 
all  together  lovely;  in  vain  the  elfin  chorus  of  the  upper  voices, 
in  vain  the  foaming  lament  of  the  voices  below.  No  path  here 
for  him,  and  no  space! 

One  evening  Daniel  noticed  a  strange  girl  at  his  window.  She 
was  beautiful.  Struck  by  her  charms,  he  got  up  to  go  to  her.  She 
had  vanished.  It  was  an  hallucination.  He  became  afraid  of  him- 


380  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

self,  left  the  house,  and  wandered  through  the  streets  as  in  days 
of  long  ago. 


It  was  Carnival  Week,  and  the  people  had  resumed  their  wonted 
gaiety.  Masked  boys  and  girls  paraded  the  streets,  making  merry 
wherever  they  went. 

As  Daniel  was  passing  through  The  Full  he  was  startled:  the 
windows-  in  the  Benda  house  were  lighted.  He  suddenly  recalled 
that  Herr  Seelenfromm  had  told  him  that  Frau  Benda  had  returned 
from  Worms  some  time  ago,  and  was  living  with  her  niece;  she 
had  become  totally  blind. 

He  went  up  the  steps  and  rang  the  bell.  A  grey-haired,  dis- 
tressed-looking woman  came  to  the  door.  He  thought  she  must 
be  the  niece.  He  told  her  his  name;  she  said  she  had  heard 
of  him. 

"You  probably  know  that  Friedrich  has  disappeared,"  she  said 
in  a  sleepy,  sing-song  voice.  "It  is  eight  years  since  we  hare  heard 
from  him.  The  last  letter  was  from  the  interior  of  Africa.  We 
have  given  up  all  hope.  Not  even  the  newspapers  say  anything 
more  about  him." 

"I  have  read  nothing  about  it,"  murmured  Daniel.  "But 
Friedrich  cannot  be  dead,"  he  continued,  shaking  his  head,  "I  will 
never  believe  it,  never."  Partly  in  distraction  and  partly  in  anxiety, 
he  riveted  his  eyes  on  the  woman,  who  stared  at  his  glasses  as  if  held 
by  a  charm. 

"We  have  done  everything  that  was  humanly  possible,"  she  said. 
"We  have  written  to  the  consulates,  we  have  inquired  of  the  mili- 
tary outposts  and  missionary  stations,  and  all  to  no  purpose."  After 
a  pause  she  said  with  a  little  more  vivacity:  "You  do  not  wish  me 
to  ask  you  in,  I  hope.  It  is  so  painful  to  my  aunt  to  hear  a  strange 
voice,  and  I  cannot  think  of  letting  you  talk  to  her.  If  I  did,  it 
would  merely  open  her  old  wounds,  and  she  has  a  hard  enough 
time  of  it  as  it  is." 

Daniel  nodded  and  went  on  his  way.  A  coarse  laugh  could  be 
heard  down  in  the  entrance  hall;  it  was  painfully  out  of  harmony 
with  the  depressed  atmosphere  of  the  Benda  apartment.  He  felt 
his  heart  grow  faint;  he  felt  a  burning  desire  for  something, 
though  he  was  unable  to  say  precisely  what,  something  sweet  and 
radiant. 


THE  PROMETHEAN  SYMPHONY  381 

On  the  last  landing  he  stopped,  and  looked  with  utter  amaze- 
ment into  the  hall  below. 

Herr  Carovius  was  dancing  like  a  Merry-Andrew  around  the 
door  of  his  residence.  He  had  a  crown  of  silver  paper  on  his  head, 
and  was  trying  to  ward  off  the  importunate  advances  of  a  young 
girl.  His  smiles  were  tender  but  senile.  The  girl  wore  a  carnival 
costume.  Her  dark  blue  velvet  dress,  covered  with  threads  of 
silver,  made  her  robust  figure  look  slenderer  than  it  actually  was. 
A  black  veil-like  cloth  hung  from  her  shoulders  to  the  ground,  and 
then  draped  along  behind  her  for  about  three  paces.  It  was  sprin- 
kled with  glittering  tinsel.  In  her  hand  she  held  a  hideous  wax 
mask  of  the  face  of  an  old  sot  with  a  red  nose.  She  was  trying  to 
fit  the  mask  to  Herr  Carovius's  face. 

She  was  working  hard  to  make  him  yield;  she  said  she  was  not 
going  to  leave  until  she  had  put  the  mask  on  his  face.  Herr 
Carovius  shook  the  door,  which  in  the  meantime  had  closed, 
fumbled  about  in  his  pockets  for  the  key,  but  the  girl  gave  him 
no  peace. 

"Come  now,  Teddy,"  she  kept  crying,  "come,  Uncle,  don't  be 
such  an  old  bore."  She  kept  getting  closer  and  closer  to  him. 

"You  wait,  I'll  show  you  how  to  make  a  fool  of  respectable 
people,"  croaked  Herr  Carovius  in  well-meaning  anger.  He 
resembled  an  old  dog,  hopping  about  and  getting  ready  to  make 
the  plunge  when  his  master  throws  his  walking  stick  into  the 
water.  In  his  zeal,  however,  to  prevent  the  girl  from  offending 
his  dignity,  he  had  forgotten  the  paper  crown  on  his  head.  It 
wabbled  and  shook  so  when  he  hopped  around,  that  the  girl  nearly 
split  her  sides  laughing. 

A  maid  came  in  just  then  with  an  apronful  of  snow.  The  girl 
with  the  sweeping  train  ran  up  to  her,  got  some  of  the  snow,  and 
threatened  to  pelt  Herr  Carovius  with  it.  He  begged  for  mercy, 
and  rather  than  undergo  a  bombardment  with  this  cold  stuff,  he 
ceased  offering  resistance,  whereupon  the  girl  walked  up  to  him 
and  placed  the  mask  on  his  face.  Then,  exhausted  from  laughter, 
she  laid  her  head  on  his  shoulder.  The  maid — it  was  Doderlein's 
maid — was  delighted  at  the  comedy,  and  made  a  noise  that  resem- 
bled the  cackling  of  a  hen. 

The  scene  was  dimly  lighted  by  a  lamp  attached  to  the  adjacent 
wall,  and  had  on  this  account,  quite  apart  from  the  sight  of  Herr 
Carovius  with  the  paper  crown  and  the  toper's  mask,  something 
fantastic  about  it. 


382  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

Daniel  did  not  know  that  the  girl  was  Dorothea  Doderlein, 
though  he  half  suspected  as  much.  But  whoever  she  was,  he  was 
impressed  by  her  jollity,  her  actual  lust  for  laughter,  her  complete 
lack  of  restraint.  He  had  never  known  that  sort  of  mirthful 
hilarity;  and  if  he  had  known  it,  he  could  not  recall  it.  Her 
youthful  features,  her  bright  eyes,  her  white  teeth,  her  agile  ges- 
tures filled  him  with  deferential  respect;  his  eyes  swam  with 
emotion.  He  felt  so  old,  so  foreign;  he  felt  that  where  he  was 
the  sun  was  not  shining,  the  flowers  were  not  budding.  He  felt 
that  life  had  appeared  to  him  all  of  a  sudden  and  quite  unex- 
pectedly in  a  new,  kindly,  bewitching  light. 

He  came  slowly  down  the  steps. 

"Is  it  possible!"  cried  Herr  Carovius,  tearing  the  mask  from  his 
face.  "Can  I  trust  my  own  eyes?  It  is  our  maestro!  Or  is  it 
his  ghost?" 

"It  is  both  he  and  his  ghost,"  replied  Daniel  drily. 

"This  is  no  place  for  ghosts,"  cried  Dorothea,  and  threw  a 
snow  ball,  hitting  him  square  on  the  shoulder. 

Daniel  looked  at  her;  she  blushed,  and  looked  at  Herr  Carovius 
questioningly.  "Don't  you  know  our  Daniel  Nothafft,  you  little 
ignoramus?"  said  Herr  Carovius.  "You  know  nothing  of  our 
coryphaeus?  Hail  to  the  Master!  Welcome  home!  He  is  here, 
covered  with  fame!" 

At  any  other  time  Herr  Carovius's  biliary  sarcasm  would  have 
aroused  Daniel's  whole  stock-in-trade  of  aversion  and  indignation. 
To-day  he  was  unimpressed  by  it.  "How  young  she  is,"  he  thought, 
as  he  feasted  his  eyes  on  the  embarrassed,  laughing  Dorothea,  "how 
gloriously  young!" 

Dorothea  was  angry  because  she  did  not  have  on  the  red  dress 
she  had  had  made  in  Munich. 

"Dorothea!"  called  a  strong  voice  from  the  first  floor. 

"Oh,  there's  father!"  whispered  Dorothea.  She  was  frightened. 
She  ran  up  the  steps  on  her  tiptoes,  dragging  her  long  veil  after 
her.  The  maid  followed  her. 

"A  devil,  a  regular  little  devil,  Maestro"  said  Herr  Carovius 
turning  to  Daniel.  "You  must  come  in  some  time  and  hear  how 
she  can  draw  the  bow.  She's  a  regular  little  devil,  I  say." 

Daniel  bade  Herr  Carovius  adieu,  and  went  walking  down  the 
street  with  bowed  head. 


THE  PROMETHEAN  SYMPHONY  383 


XII 

In  the  province,  Dorothea  Doderlein,  fresh  from  the  Bavarian 
capital,  was  a  phenomenon  that  attracted  general  attention.  Her 
conduct  seemed,  to  be  sure,  a  bit  liberal,  but  then  she  was  an 
artist,  and  her  name  appeared  in  the  newspapers  every  now  and 
then,  so  it  was  only  natural  to  make  allowances  for  her.  When 
she  gave  her  first  concert,  Adler  Hall  was  almost  completely 
sold  out. 

The  musical  critic  of  the  Herold  was  captivated  by  her  capricious 
playing.  He  called  her  an  extraordinary  talent,  and  predicted  a 
brilliant  future  for  her.  Andreas  Doderlein  accepted  the  con- 
gratulations in  the  spirit  of  a  seasoned  patron  of  the  arts;  Herr 
Carovius  was  in  the  seventh  heaven  of  joy.  He  who  had  formerly 
been  so  captious  never  uttered  a  critical  word.  He  had  taken  to 
worshipping  the  Dorothea  cult,  and  this  had  made  him  quite 
indiscriminating. 

At  first  Dorothea  never  suffered  from  want  of  invitations  to  all 
manner  of  clubs,  dances,  and  family  gatherings.  She  was  much 
adored  by  the  young  men,  so  much  so  that  other  daughters  of  the 
city  of  matrimonial  age  could  not  sleep  from  envy.  In  a  short 
while,  however,  the  youth  of  more  sterling  character,  warned 
while  there  was  yet  time  by  their  mothers,  sisters,  cousins,  and 
aunts,  withdrew  in  fear. 

Dorothea  reaped  the  disapproval  of  her  acquaintances  by  walk- 
ing with  her  admirers  in  public,  unchaperoncd.  Moreover  she 
could  frequently  be  seen  in  the  company  of  officers  in  the  Eisenbeiss 
pastry  shop,  drinking  chocolate  and  having  a  good  time  generally. 
Once  she  had  been  seen  in  the  society  of  a  big  blonde  Swede  from 
Schuckcrt's  factory  coming  out  of  the  Music  Hall.  The  rumour 
was  spread  that  she  had  lived  an  irregular  life  in  Munich,  had 
gadded  about  the  streets  at  night,  contracted  a  number  of  bad 
debts,  and  flirted  with  all  kinds  of  men. 

Yet  there  were  a  few  serious  wooers  who,  duped  by  Andreas 
Doderlein's  diplomacy,  fell  into  the  habit  of  coming  around  on 
Sunday  evenings  and  taking  dinner  with  father  and  daughter. 
Dorothea,  however,  always  managed  to  play  off  one  against  the 
other;  and  as  they  were  all  serious  and  provincial,  they  did  not 
know  precisely  what  to  make  of  it.  In  order  to  instil  patience 
into  them,  Doderlein  took  to  delivering  them  lectures  on  the 
intricate  complications  of  the  artistic  temperament,  or  he  made 


384  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

mysterious  allusions  to  the  handsome  legacy  to  which  Dorothea 
would  one  day  fall  heir. 

It  was  this  very  fact,  however,  that  made  him  exercise  caution 
with  regard  to  Dorothea.  Knowing  her  spirit  of  defiance,  and 
appreciating  her  youthful  lack  of  judgment,  he  was  afraid  she 
might  make  some  faux  fas  that  would  offend  that  old  fool  of  a 
Carovius.  He  was  already  giving  her  a  little  spending  money, 
and  the  Doderleins  found  this  a  highly  advantageous  arrangement. 

The  state  of  Doderlein's  own  finances  was  hopeless.  It  was 
with  the  greatest  difficulty  that  he  kept  up  the  appearance  of  a 
well-to-do  man.  The  chief  cause  of  his  pecuniary  embarrassment 
was  his  relation  of  long  standing  with  a  woman  by  whom  he 
had  had  three  children.  To  support  this  second  family,  of  whose 
existence  not  a  soul  in  his  immediate  surroundings  knew  a  thing, 
burdened  him  with  a  care  that  made  it  hard  for  him  to  preserve 
his  cheerful,  Jove-like  disposition. 

He  had  been  leading  a  double  life  for  fourteen  years.  His 
regular  visits  to  the  woman  he  loved — she  lived  very  quietly  out 
in  the  remote  suburbs  of  the  city — had  to  be  made  without  attract- 
ing attention.  To  conceal  his  connection  with  her  from  the 
vigilant  eyes  of  his  fellow  citizens  made  constant  dissimulation, 
discretion,  and  shrewdness  a  necessary  part  of  his  character.  But 
to  practise  these  traits  year  in  and  year  out  and  suffer  at  the  same 
time  from  economic  pressure  filled  him  with  suppressed  anger 
and  fear. 

He  was  afraid  of  Dorothea.  There  were  moments  when  he 
would  have  liked  to  maul  her;  and  yet  he  saw  himself  obliged 
to  hold  her  in  check  with  kind  words.  He  could  not  see  through 
her.  But  she  was  always  around,  always  adding  to  his  troubles  with 
her  plans,  wishes,  engagements  and  intrigues.  He  thought  he  had 
her  under  control,  only  to  discover  that  she  was  a  tyrant,  lording 
it  over  him.  Now  she  would  burst  out  crying  because  of  some 
bagatelle,  now  she  was  laughing  as  though  nothing  had  ever  hap- 
pened. The  roses  her  serious  and  moneyed  I  admirers  brought  her 
she  picked  to  pieces  in  their  very  presence,  and  threw  the  pieces 
in  the  waste-paper  basket.  Doderlein  would  lecture  her  in  the 
kindest  and  most  intelligent  way  on  good  morals  and  gentle  man- 
ners, and  she  would  listen  as  though  she  were  a  saint.  Five  minutes 
later  she  would  be  hanging  out  of  the  window,  flirting  with  the 
barber's  boy  across  the  street. 

"I  am  an  unfortunate  father,"  said  Andreas  Doderlein  to  him- 
self, when,  apart  from  all  his  other  multifarious  worries,  he  began 


THE  PROMETHEAN  SYMPHONY  385 

to  be  sceptical  about  Dorothea's  artistic  ability.  Shortly  after  her 
success  in  Nuremberg,  she  gave  a  concert  in  Frankfort,  but  every- 
thing was  pretty  quiet.  Then  she  toured  the  small  towns  of  cen- 
tral Germany,  and  was  received  everywhere  with  the  greatest 
enthusiasm.  But  what  of  it?  How  much  critical  acumen  is  to  be 
found  in  such  places? 

One  evening  she  was  at  the  home  of  a  certain  Frau  Feistelmann, 
a  woman  whose  past  had  some  connection  with  nearly  every  scandal 
of  the  city.  While  there  she  met  an  actor  by  the  name  of 
Edmund  Hahn.  Herr  Hahn  had  soft,  blonde  hair  and  a  pale, 
bloated  face.  He  was  rather  tall  and  had  long  legs.  Dorothea 
raved  about  long  legs.  There  was  a  thoroughly  sensual  atmosphere 
about  the  man;  he  devoured  Dorothea  with  his  impudent  eyes. 
His  build,  his  bearing,  his  half  blase,  half  emphatic  way  of  speak- 
ing made  an  impression  on  Dorothea.  He  sat  next  to  her  at  the 
table,  and  began  to  rub  his  feet  against  hers.  Finally  he  succeeded 
in  getting  his  left  foot  on  her  slipper.  She  tried  to  pull  her  foot 
back,  but  the  more  she  tried  the  harder  he  bore  down  on  it.  She 
looked  at  him  in  amazement;  but  he  smiled  cynically,  and  in  a  few 
minutes  they  were  desperately  intimate.  After  dinner  they  with- 
drew to  a  hidden  corner,  and  you  could  hear  Dorothea  giggling. 

They  arranged  to  meet  each  other  on  a  certain  street  corner 
in  the  dark.  He  sent  her  free  tickets  to  "Maria  Stuart"  and  "Die 
Rauber."  He  played  the  roles  of  Mortimer  and  Kosinsky;  he 
roared  till  you  thought  the  roof  would  fall  in.  He  introduced 
Dorothea  to  a  number  of  his  friends,  and  these  brought  their  girl 
friends  along,  and  they  all  sat  in  the  Nassau  Cellar  till  break  of 
day.  Among  them  was  a  certain  Samuelsky,  an  employe  of  the 
Reutlinger  Bank.  He  had  the  manners  of  a  man  about  town, 
drank  champagne,  and  went  mad  over  Dorothea.  She  submitted 
to  his  attention,  welcomed  it  in  fact,  and  accepted  presents  from 
him,  though,  as  it  seemed,  not  until  she  had  received  the  permission 
from  Edmund  Hahn.  Once  he  tried  to  kiss  her:  she  gave  him  a 
ringing  box  on  the  ears.  He  wiped  his  cheek,  and  called  her  a 
siren. 

She  liked  the  expression.  At  times  she  would  stand  before  the 
mirror,  and  whisper:  "Siren." 

When  Andreas  Doderlein  heard  of  what  was  going  on,  he  had 
an  attack  of  mad  rage.  "I  will  put  you  out  of  the  house,"  he 
exclaimed,  "I  will  beat  you  until  you  are  a  helpless,  despicable 
cripple."  But  in  his  eyes  there  was  again  the  trace  of  that  sup- 
pressed fear  that  gave  the  lie  to  his  seeming  berserker  rage. 


386  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

"An  artist  does  not  need  to  adapt  her  morals  to  the  code  of  the 
Philistine,"  remarked  Dorothea,  with  complete  imperturbability. 
"Those  are  all  nice  people  with  whom  I  am  going.  Every  one 
of  them  is  a  gentleman." 

A  gentleman:  that  was  an  argument  against  which  it  was  futile 
to  enter  a  caveat.  In  her  eyes  that  man  was  a  gentleman  who  ran 
risks,  impressed  waiters  and  coachmen,  and  wore  creased  trousers. 
"No  one  dares  come  too  close  to  me,"  she  said  with  much  pride. 
That  was  the  truth;  no  one  had  thus  far  awakened  her  deepest 
curiosity,  and  she  had  determined  to  put  a  high  price  on  herself. 
Edmund  Hahn  was  the  only  one  who  had  any  influence  on  her; 
and  this  was  true  of  him  because  he  was  absolutely  devoid  of  feel- 
ing, and  had  a  type  of  shamelessness  that  completely  disarmed  and 
terrified  her. 

Andreas  Doderlein  had  to  let  her  have  her  way.  If  he  had 
any  consolation  at  all,  it  lay  in  the  belief  on  his  part  that  a  real 
Doderlein  would  never  voluntarily  come  to  grief.  If  Dorothea 
was  a  genuine  Doderlein,  she  would  march  straight  to  her  objective, 
and  take  by  storm  the  good  and  useful  things  of  life.  If  she 
failed,  it  would  be  proof  that  there  was  a  flaw  somewhere  in  her 
birth.  This  was  his  logic;  and  having  applied  it,  theoretically,  he 
enshrouded  himself  in  the  clouds  of  his  Olympus. 

Dorothea  gave  her  uncle  Carovius,  however,  detailed  accounts 
of  how  she  was  making  her  suitors,  young  and  old,  walk  the  war- 
path. They  all  had  to  do  it,  the  actor  and  the  banker,  the  candle 
manufacturer  and  the  engineer.  She  said  she  was  leading  the 
whole  pack  of  them  around  by  the  nose.  Herr  Carovius's  face 
beamed  with  joy  when  he  heard  her  say  this.  He  called  her  his 
little  jackanapes,  and  said  she  was  the  fortune  of  his  old  age.  To 
himself  he  said  that  she  was  a  genuine  Carovius  destined  to  great 
deeds. 

"You  don't  have  to  get  married,"  he  said  with  the  urge  of  a 
zealot  of  old,  and  rubbed  his  hands.  "Oh,  of  course,  if  a  Count 
comes  along  with  a  few  millions  and  a  castle  in  the  background, 
why,  you  might  think  it  over.  But  just  let  some  greasy  comedian 
get  it  into  his  head  that  he  is  going  to  steal  you  away  from  me! 
Or  let  some  wabbly-hipped  office-boy  imagine  for  a  minute  that 
he  is  going  to  drag  you  into  his  circle  along  with  his  other  unwashed 
acquaintances!  If  this  ever  happens,  Dorothea,  give  it  to  'em  hot 
and  heavy!  Show  the  wanton  satyrs  what  kind  of  blood  you  have 
in  you." 

"Ah,  Uncle,"  said  Dorothea,  "I   know  you  mean  well  by  me. 


THE  PROMETHEAN  SYMPHONY  387 

You  are  the  only  one  who  does.  But  if  I  were  only  not  so  poor! 
Look  at  me!  Look  at  this  dress  I  have  on!  It's  a  sight!"  And 
she  put  her  head  in  her  uplifted  arm  and  sobbed. 

Herr  Carovius  pulled  at  his  moustaches,  moved  his  eyebrows  up 
and  down,  went  to  his  writing  desk,  opened  his  strong  box,  took 
out  a  hundred-mark  bill,  and  gave  it  to  her  with  turned  head,  as 
if  he  were  afraid  of  the  wrath  of  the  protecting  spirit  of  the 
money  chest. 

This  was  the  state  of  affairs  when  Daniel  met  the  youthful 
Dorothea  in  Herr  Carovius's  home,  and  went  away  with  an  unfor- 
gettable, unextinguishable  picture  of  her  in  his  soul. 

XIII 

Daniel's  approaching  fortieth  birthday  seemed  like  a  sombre 
portal  leading  to  the  realm  of  spent  ambition.  "Seize  what 
remains  to  be  seized,"  a  voice  within  him  cried.  "Grass  is  grow- 
ing on  the  graves." 

His  senses  were  at  war  with  his  intellect  and  his  heart.  He  had 
never  looked  on  women  as  he  was  looking  on  them  now. 

One  day  he  went  out  to  Siegmundshof.  Eberhard  was  not  at 
home.  Sylvia's  face  showed  traces  of  subdued  sadness.  She  had 
three  children,  each  one  more  beautiful  than  the  other,  but  when 
her  eyes  rested  on  them  her  heart  was  filled  with  grief.  Women 
whose  married  life  is  unhappy  have  dull,  lifeless  features;  their 
hands  are  transparent  and  yellow. 

Daniel  took  leave  more  quickly  than  he  had  wished  or  intended. 
He  felt  an  egoistic  aversion  to  the  joyless  sons  of  man. 

He  went  to  see  Herr  Carovius.  The  laughing  one  whom  he 
sought  was  not  at  home. 

Herr  Carovius  looked  at  him  at  times  distrustfully.  The  face 
of  his  former  foe  set  him  to  thinking.  It  was  furrowed  like  a 
field  under  cultivation  and  burnt  like  a  hearthstone.  It  was  the 
face  of  a  criminal,  crabbed,  enervated,  tense,  and  breathed  upon, 
it  seemed,  by  threatening  clouds.  Herr  Carovius  was  a  connoisseur 
of  faces. 

In  order  to  avoid  the  discomfort  of  fatuous  conversation,  Daniel 
played  a  number  of  old  motetts  for  Herr  Carovius.  Herr  Carovius 
was  so  pleased  that  he  ran  into  his  pantry,  and  got  a  half  dozen 
Boxdorf  apples  and  put  them  in  Daniel's  pockets.  He  bought 
these  apples  every  autumn  by  the  peck,  and  cherished  them  as  so 
many  priceless  treasures. 


388  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

"At  the  sound  of  such  music  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  become 
a  real  Christian,"  he  said. 

"There  is  spring  in  them,"  said  Daniel,  "they  are  art  that  is 
as  innocent  as  new  seed  in  the  soil.  But  your  piano  needs 
tuning." 

"Symbolic,  symbolic,  my  dear  friend,"  cried  Herr  Carovius,  and 
puffed  out  his  cheeks.  "But  you  come  back  another  time,  and  you 
will  find  it  in  the  pink  of  condition.  Come  frequently,  please. 
You  will  reap  the  reward  of  Heaven  if  you  do." 

Herr  Carovius  begging  for  company;  it  was  touching.  Daniel 
promised  to  bring  some  of  the  manuscripts  he  had  been  collecting 
along  with  him.  When  he  returned  a  few  days  later,  Dorothea 
was  there;  and  from  then  on  she  was  always  there.  His  visits 
became  longer  and  longer.  When  Herr  Carovius  noticed  that 
Dorothea  was  coming  to  see  him  more  frequently  now,  he  moved 
heaven  and  earth  to  persuade  Daniel  to  come  more  frequently. 
He  rained  reproach  and  abuse  on  him  if  he  failed  to  come;  if  he 
was  late,  he  greeted  him  with  a  sour  face  and  put  indiscreet  ques- 
tions to  him.  When  he  was  alone  of  an  afternoon,  time  stood 
still.  He  was  like  a  drinker  tantalised  by  seeing  his  accustomed 
portion  of  brandy  on  the  table  but  just  beyond  his  reach.  The 
company  of  these  two  people,  Daniel  and  Dorothea,  had  become  as 
indispensable  to  his  happiness  as  in  former  years  the  reading  of 
the  newspapers,  the  brethren  of  the  Vale  of  Tears,  the  troubles 
of  Eberhard  and  the  funerals  were  indispensable  if  he  were  to  feel 
at  ease.  It  is  the  way  of  the  small  citizen:  each  of  his  customs 
becomes  a  passion. 

When  Daniel  played  the  old  chorals,  Dorothea  listened  quietly, 
though  it  could  not  be  said  that  she  was  perfect  at  concealing 
her  tedium. 

One  time  they  began  talking  about  Dorothea's  violin  playing. 
Herr  Carovius  asked  her  to  play  something.  She  declined  without 
the  slightest  display  of  affectation.  Daniel  said  nothing  to  encour- 
age her;  he  found  that  this  modesty  was  becoming  to  her;  he 
believed  that  he  detected  wisdom  and  resignation  in  her  behaviour; 
he  smiled  at  her  graciously. 

"Tell  us  a  story,  Daniel,"  she  said,  "that  would  be  better." 
It  eventually  came  out  that  that  was  what  she  had  wanted  all  along. 

"I  am  a  poor  raconteur,"  said  Daniel.      "I  have  a  thick  tongue." 

She  begged  him,  however,  with  stammering  words  and  beseech- 
ing gestures.  Herr  Carovius  tittered.  Daniel  took  off  his  glasses, 
polished  them,  and  looked  at  the  young  girl  with  squinting  eyes. 


389 

It  seemed  as  if  the  glasses  had  made  it  difficult  for  him  to  see 
Dorothea  distinctly,  or  as  if  he  preferred  to  see  her  indistinctly. 
"I  really  don't  know  what  I  could  tell  in  the  way  of  a  story,"  he 
replied,  shaking  his  head. 

"Tell  us  everything,  anything,"  cried  Dorothea,  seized  with  a 
veritable  fit  of  eagerness  to  hear  him  talk.  She  stretched  out  her 
hands  toward  him:  that  seemed  to  him  to  be  so  like  a  child.  He 
had  never  told  stories  to  a  child;  he  had  never  in  truth  told  stories 
to  any  one.  Gertrude  and  Eleanore  had,  to  be  sure,  forced  a  con- 
fession or  a  complaint  from  him  at  times,  but  that  was  all,  and  all 
that  was  necessary  or  appropriate. 

Suddenly  he  was  drawn  on  by  the  word  in  which  his  fate  would 
be  quietly  reflected;  by  the  fiery  young  eye  in  the  brilliancy  of 
which  the  complex  became  simple,  the  dark  bright;  by  the  wicked 
old  man  to  whom  the  whole  world,  as  seen  from  his  mire,  had 
become  a  poisonous  food. 

And  with  his  brittle,  staccato  voice  he  told  of  the  countries 
through  which  he  had  journeyed;  of  the  sea  and  the  cities  by  the 
sea;  of  the  Alps  and  the  Alpine  lakes;  of  cathedrals,  palaces,  and 
marvellous  monasteries;  of  the  queer  people  he  had  met,  of  his 
work  and  his  loneliness.  It  was  all  incoherent,  arid,  and  loveless. 
Though  sorely  tempted,  he  desisted  from  mentioning  things  that 
came  close  to  his  soul;  things  that  moved  his  heart,  fired  his  brain. 
When  he  told  of  the  Jewess,  the  Swallow,  he  did  not  even  finish 
the  sentence.  He  made  a  long  pause,  and  then  shifted  to  the 
account  of  his  visit  to  Eschenbach.  Here  he  stopped  again  before 
he  was  through. 

But  Dorothea  began  to  ask  questions.  It  was  all  too  general  and 
therefore  unsatisfactory.  "What  was  there  in  Eschenbach?  Why 
did  you  go  there?"  she  asked  boldly. 

He  was  in  error  concerning  the  hot  desire  that  burned  in  her 
eyes  to  know  about  Eschenbach.  Her  question  made  him  feel 
good;  he  believed  that  he  was  on  the  scent  of  warm-heartedness; 
he  thought  he  had  found  a  soul  that  was  eager  to  help  through 
knowledge.  He  was  seized  with  the  desire  of  the  mature  man  to 
fashion  an  untouched  soul  in  harmony  with  the  picture  of  his 
dreams.  "My  mother  used  to  live  there,"  he  replied  hesitatingly, 
"she  has  died." 

"Yes — and?"  breathed  Dorothea.     She  saw  that  that  was  not  all. 

He  felt  that  this  uncompromising  reticence  was  not  right;  he 
felt  a  sense  of  guilt.  With  still  greater  hesitation — and  immediate 
repentance — he  added:  "A  child  of  mine  also  lived  there;  she  was 


390  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

eleven  years  old.    She  has  disappeared ;  no  one  knows  where  she  is." 

Dorothea  folded  her  hands.  "A  child?  And  disappeared?  Sim- 
ply vanished?"  she  whispered  excitedly. 

Herr  Carovius  looked  like  a  man  sitting  on  a  hot  iron.  "Eleven 
years  old?"  he  asked,  hungry  for  sensation,  "why — that  was,  then 
— before  the  time  .  .  ." 

"Yes,  it  was  before  the  time,"  said  Daniel  gloomily  and  by  way 
of  confirmation.  He  had  betrayed  himself,  and  was  angry  at  him- 
self for  having  done  so.  He  became  silent;  it  was  impossible  to 
get  him  to  say  another  word. 

Herr  Carovius  noticed  how  Dorothea  hung  on  Daniel's  eyes. 
A  tormenting  suspicion  arose  in  him.  "Yesterday  out  on  St. 
Joseph's  Place,  I  was  talking  with  one  of  your  admirers,  the  fellow 
who  shatters  the  wings  of  the  stage  with  his  ranting,"  he  began 
with  malice  aforethought.  "The  blade  had  the  nerve  to  say  to  me: 
'You'd  better  hurry  up  and  get  Dorothea  Doderlein  a  husband,  or 
people  will  talk  their  tongues  loose  in  their  throats.'  " 

"That  is  not  true,"  cried  Dorothea  indignantly,  blushing  to  the 
roots  of  her  hair.  "He  didn't  say  that." 

Herr  Carovius  laughed  malevolently.  "Well,  if  it  is  not  true, 
it  is  pretty  well  put  together,"  he  said  with  his  usual  bleat. 

When  Daniel  left,  Dorothea  accompanied  him  to  the  outside 
door. 

"It's  a  pity,"  murmured  Daniel,  "a  pity!" 

"Why  a  pity?  I  am  free.  There  isn't  a  soul  in  the  world 
who  has  any  claim  on  me."  She  looked  at  him  with  the  courage 
of  a  real  woman. 

"There  are  remarks  that  are  just  like  grease  spots,"  he  replied. 

"Well,  who  can  keep  from  the  dirt  these  days? "  she  asked,  almost 
wild  with  excitement. 

Daniel  let  his  eyes  rest  on  her  as  though  she  were  some  material 
object.  He  said  slowly  and  seriously:  "Keep  your  hands  and  your 
eyes  off  of  me,  Dorothea.  I  will  bring  you  no  happiness." 

Her  lips  opened,  thirsty.  "I  should  like  to  take  a  walk  with  you 
some  time,"  she  whispered,  and  her  features  trembled  with  an 
ecstasy  which  he  was  dupe  enough  to  believe  was  meant  for  him; 
in  reality  Dorothea  was  thinking  of  the  adventurer  and  the  dis- 
closure of  the  secret. 

"Many  years  ago,"  said  Daniel,  "you  will  scarcely  recall  it,  I 
protected  you  here  in  this  very  same  gateway  from  a  big  dog.  Do 
you  remember?" 


THE  PROMETHEAN  SYMPHONY  391 

"No!  Or  do  I?  Wait  a  minute!  Yes,  I  remember,  that  is, 
quite  indistinctly.  You  did  that?"  Dorothea  seized  his  hands 
with  gratitude. 

"Fine!  Then  we  will  go  walking  to-morrow  morning.  Where? 
Oh,  it  doesn't  make  much  difference,"  said  Daniel. 

"But  you  must  tell  me  everything,  you  hear?  everything." 
Dorothea  was  as  insistent  as  she  had  been  in  the  room  a  short  while 
ago;  and  she  was  more  impetuous  and  impatient. 

They,  agreed  upon  the  place  where  they  would  meet. 

XIV 

At  first  they  took  short  walks  in  remote  parts  of  the  city;  then 
they  took  longer  ones.  On  Mid-Summer  Day  they  strolled  out  to 
Kraftshof  and  the  grove  of  the  Pegnitz  shepherds.  Daniel  made 
unconscious  effort  to  avoid  the  places  where  he  had  once  walked 
with  Eleanore. 

There  came  moments  when  Dorothea's  exuberance  made  him 
pensive  and  sad;  he  felt  the  weight  of  his  forty  years;  they  were 
inclined  to  make  him  hypochondriacal.  Was  it  the  vengeance  of 
fate  that  made  him  slow  up  when  they  came  to  a  hill,  while 
Dorothea  ran  on  ahead  and  waited  for  him,  laughing? 

She  did  not  see  the  flowers,  the  trees,  the  animals,  or  the  clouds. 
But  when  she  saw  people  a  change  came  over  her:  she  would 
become  more  active;  or  she  would  mobilise  her  resources;  or  she 
seemed  to  strike  up  a  spiritual  liaison  with  them.  It  might  be 
only  a  peasant  boy  on  an  errand  or  a  vagabond  going  nowhere; 
she  would  shake  her  hips  and  laugh  one  note  higher. 

"Her  youth  has  gone  to  her  head,  like  wine,"  Daniel  thought  to 
himself. 

Once  she  took  a  box  of  chocolate  bon-bons  along.  Having  had 
enough  of  them  herself  and  seeing  that  Daniel  did  not  care  for 
them,  she  threw  what  was  left  away.  Daniel  reproached  her  for 
her  wastefulness.  "Why  drag  it  along?"  she  asked  with  perfect 
lack  of  embarrassment,  "when  you  have  enough  of  a  thing  you 
throw  it  away."  She  showed  her  white  teeth,  and  took  in  one 
deep  breath  of  fresh  air  after  another. 

Daniel  studied  her.  "She  is  invulnerable,"  he  said  to  himself; 
"her  power  to  wish  is  invincible,  her  fulness  of  life  complete." 
He  felt  that  she  bore  a  certain  resemblance  to  his  Eva;  that  she 
wa*  one  of  those  elves  of  light  in  whose  cheerfulness  there  is  occa- 


392  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

sionally  a  touch  of  the  terrible.  He  decided  then  and  there  not  to 
let  mischievous  chance  have  its  own  way:  he  was  going  to  put  out 
his  hand  when  he  felt  it  was  advisable. 

"When  are  you  going  to  begin  to  tell  me  the  stories?"  she  asked: 
"I  must,  I  must  know  all  about  you,"  she  added  with  much  warmth 
of  expression.  "There  are  days  and  nights  when  I  cannot  rest. 
Tell  me!  Tell  me!" 

That  was  the  truth.  In  order  to  penetrate  his  life  history,  which 
she  pictured  to  herself  as  full  of  passionate,  checkered  events,  she 
had  done  everything  that  he  had  demanded  of  her. 

Daniel  refused;  he  was  silent;  he  was  afraid  he  would  darken 
the  girl's  pure  mind,  jeopardise  her  unsuspecting  innocence.  He 
was  afraid  to  conjure  up  the  shadows. 

One  day  she  was  talking  along  in  her  easy  way,  and  while  so 
doing  she  tripped  herself  up.  She  had  begun  to  tell  him  about 
the  men  she  had  been  going  with;  and  before  she  knew  what  she 
was  doing,  she  had  fallen  into  the  tone  she  used  when  she  talked 
with  her  Uncle  Carovius.  Becoming  suddenly  aware  of  her  indis- 
cretion, she  stopped,  embarrassed.  Daniel's  serious  questions  caused 
her  to  make  some  confessions  she  would  otherwise  never  have 
thought  of  making.  She  told  a  goodly  number  of  rather  murky 
and  ugly  stories,  and  it  was  very  hard  for  her  to  act  as  though  she 
were  innocent  or  the  victim  of  circumstances.  At  last,  unable 
longer  to  escape  from  the  net  she  had  woven,  she  made  a  clean 
breast  of  her  whole  life,  painted  it  all  in  the  gaudiest  colours,  and 
then  waited  in  breathless — but  agreeable — suspense  to  see  what 
effect  it  would  have  on  Daniel. 

Daniel  was  silent  for  a  while;  then  he  made  a  motion  with  his 
outstretched  hand  as  if  he  were  cutting  something  in  two:  "Away 
from  them,  Dorothea,  or  away  from  me!" 

Dorothea  bowed  her  head,  and  then  looked  at  him  timidly  from 
head  to  foot.  The  decisiveness  with  which  he  spoke  was  some- 
thing new  to  her,  though  it  was  by  no  means  offensive.  A  volup- 
tuous shudder  ran  through  her  limbs.  "Yes,"  she  whispered  girl- 
ishly, "I  am  going  to  put  an  end  to  it.  I  never  realised  what  it  all 
meant.  But  don't  be  angry,  will  you?  No,  you  won't,  will  you?" 

She  came  closer  to  him;  her  eyes  were  filled  with  tears.  "Don't 
be  angry  at  me,"  she  said  again,  "poor  Dorothea  can't  help  it.  She 
is  not  responsible  for  it." 

"But  how  did  you  come  to  do  it?"  asked  Daniel.  "I  can't  see 
how  it  was  possible.  Weren't  you  disgusted  to  the  very  bottom 
of  your  soul?  How  could  you  go  about  under  God's  free  heavens 


THE  PROMETHEAN  SYMPHONY  393 

with  such  hyenas?  Why,  girl,  the  very  thought  of  it  fills  me  with 
scepticism  about  everything." 

"What  should  I  have  done,  Daniel?"  she  said,  calling  him  by  his 
baptismal  name  for  the  first  time.  She  spoke  with  a  felicitous 
mixture  of  submissiveness  and  boldness  that  touched  and  at  the 
same  time  enchanted  him.  "What  should  I  have  done?  They 
come  and  talk  to  you,  and  spin  their  nets  about  you;  and  at  home 
it  is  so  dreary  and  lonely,  and  your  heart  is  so  empty  and  Father 
is  so  mean,  you  haven't  got  anybody  else  in  the  world  to  talk  to." 
Such  was  her  defence,  effective  even  if  more  voluble  than  coherent. 

They  walked  on.  They  were  passing  through  a  valley  in  the 
forest.  On  either  side  were  tall  pine  trees,  the  crowns  of  which 
were  lighted  by  the  evening  sun. 

"You  can't  play  with  Fate,  Dorothea,"  said  Daniel.  "It  dops 
not  permit  smudging  or  muddling,  if  we  are  to  stand  the  test.  It 
keeps  a  faultless  ledger;  the  entries  it  makes  on  both  sides  are  the 
embodiment  of  accuracy.  Debts  that  we  contract  must  always  be 
paid,  somehow,  somewhere." 

Dorothea  felt  that  he  was  getting  started;  that  the  great,  good 
story  was  about  to  come.  She  stopped,  spread  her  shawl  on  the 
ground,  and  took  a  graceful  position  on  it,  all  eyes  and  ears.  Daniel 
threw  himself  on  the  moss  beside  her. 

And  he  told  his  story — into  the  moss  where  little  insects  were 
creeping  around.  He  never  raised  either  his  eye  or  his  voice. 
At  times  Dorothea  had  to  bend  over  to  hear  him. 

He  told  about  Gertrude,  her  torpor,  her  awakening,  her  love, 
her  resignation.  He  told  about  Eleanore;  told  how  he  had  loved 
her  without  knowing  it.  He  told  how  Eleanore,  out  of  an  excess 
of  passion  and  suffering,  became  his,  how  Gertrude  wandered  about 
dazed,  unhappy,  lost,  until  she  finally  took  her  life:  "Then  we  went 
up  to  the  attic,  and  found  it  on  fire  and  her  lifeless  body  hanging 
from  the  rafter." 

He  told  how  Gertrude  had  lived  on  as  a  shadow  by  the  side  of 
Eleanore,  and  how  Eleanore  became  a  flower  girl,  and  how  Philip- 
pina  the  inexplicable,  and  still  inexplicable,  had  come  into  his 
family,  and  how  Gertrude's  child  lived  there  like  an  unfed  foun- 
dling, and  how  the  other  child,  the  child  he  had  had  by  the  maid, 
had  found  such  a  warm  spot  in  his  heart. 

He  told  of  his  meeting  the  two  sisters,  their  speaking  and  their 
remaining  silent,  his  seeing  them  in  secret  trysts,  the  moving  about 
from  house  to  house  and  room  to  room,  the  singing  of  songs,  his 
experiences  with  the  Dormaul  opera  company,  the  light  thrown 


394  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

on  his  drab  life  by  a  mask,  his  friend  and  the  help  he  had  received 
from  him,  his  separation  from  him,  the  brush-maker's  house  on 
St.  James's  Place,  the  three  queer  old  maids  in  the  Long  Row,  the 
days  he  spent  at  Castle  Erfft,  the  old  father  of  the  two  sisters 
and  his  strange  doings — all  of  this  he  described  in  the  tone  of  a 
man  awakening  from  a  deep  sleep.  There  was  a  confidence  in  what 
he  said  and  the  way  he  said  it  that  mayhap  terrified  the  hovering 
spirits  of  the  evening,  though  it  did  not  fill  Dorothea's  eyes,  then 
glistening  like  polished  metal,  with  a  more  intimate  or  cordial 
light. 

When  he  looked  up  he  felt  he  saw  two  sombre  figures  standing 
on  the  edge  of  the  forest;  he  felt  he  saw  the  two  sisters,  and  that 
they  were  casting  mournful,  reproachful  glances  at  him. 

He  got  up.  "And  all  that,"  he  concluded,  "all  that  has  been 
drunk  up,  like  rain  by  the  parched  earth,  by  a  work  on  which  I 
have  been  labouring  for  the  past  seven  years.  For  seven  years. 
Two  more  years,  and  I  will  give  it  to  the  world,  provided  this 
unsteady  globe  has  not  fallen  into  the  sun  by  that  time." 

Dorothea  had  a  confused,  haphazard  idea  as  to  the  type  of 
man  that  was  standing  before  her.  She  was  seized  with  a  prickling 
desire  for  him  such  as  she  had  thus  far  never  experienced.  She 
began  to  love  him,  in  her  way.  Something  impelled  her  to  seek 
shelter  by  him,  near  him,  somewhat  as  a  bird  flies  under  the  crown 
of  a  tree  at  the  approach  of  a  storm.  Daniel  interpreted  the 
timidity  with  which  she  put  her  arm  in  his  as  a  sign  of  gratitude. 

And  in  this  mood  he  took  her  back  to  the  city. 


xv 

It  was  in  this  pulsing,  urging,  joyful  mood  that  Daniel  worked 
at  and  completed  the  fifth  movement  of  his  symphony,  a  scherzo 
of  grand  proportions,  beginning  with  a  clarinet  figure  that  sym- 
bolised laughing  sans-souci.  All  the  possibilities  of  joy  developed 
from  this  simple  motif.  Nor  was  retrospection  or  consolation  lack- 
ing. If  the  main  themes,  mindful  of  their  former  pre-eminence, 
seemed  inclined  to  widen  the  bed  of  their  stream,  they  were 
appeased  and  forced  back  into  their  original  channel  by  artistic 
and  capriciously  alternating  means.  Once  all  three  themes  flowed 
along  together,  gaining  strength  apparently  through  their  union, 
rose  to  a  wonderful  fugue,  and  seemed  to  be  just  on  the  point  of 
gaining  the  victory  when  the  whole  orchestra,  above  the  chord  in 
D  sevenths,  was  seized  by  the  waltz  melody,  those  melancholy  sister- 


THE  PROMETHEAN  SYMPHONY  395 

strains  were  taken  up  by  the  violins,  and  fled,  dirge-like,  to  their 
unknown  abodes.  Just  before  the  jubilant  crescendo  of  the  finale, 
a  bassoon  solo  held  one  of  them  fast  on  its  distant,  grief-stricken 
heights. 

Daniel  sketched  the  sixth  movement  in  the  following  fourteen 
nights. 

He  was  fully  aware  of  the  fact  that  he  had  never  been  able  to 
work  this  way  before.  When  a  man  accomplishes  the  extraordinary, 
he  knows  it.  It  seizes  him  like  a  disease,  and  fills  him  like  a  pro- 
found dream. 

At  times  he  felt  as  though  he  must  tell  some  one  about  it,  even 
if  it  were  only  Herr  Carovius.  But  once  the  flame  had  died 
down,  he  could  not  help  but  laugh  at  the  temptation  to  which  he 
had  felt  himself  subjected.  "Patience,"  he  thought,  feeling  more 
assured  than  ever,  "patience,  patience!" 

Since  his  work  on  the  manuscripts  was  completed  and  his  con- 
nection with  the  firm  of  Philander  and  Sons  dissolved,  he  began  to 
look  around  for  another  position.  He  had  saved  in  the  course  of 
the  last  few  years  four  thousand  marks,  but  he  wished  to  keep 
this  sum  intact. 

He  learned  that  the  position  of  organist  at  the  Church  of  St. 
^Egydius  was  vacant;  he  went  to  the  pastor,  who  recommended  him 
to  his  superiors.  It  was  decided  that  he  should  play  something 
before  the  church  consistory.  This  he  did  one  morning  in  October. 
The  trial  proved  eminently  successful  to  his  exacting  auditors. 

He  was  appointed  organist  at  St.  ^gydius's  at  a  salary  of  twelve 
hundred  marks  a  year.  When  he  played  on  Sundays  and  holidays, 
the  people  came  into  the  church  just  to  hear  him. 

XVI 

Among  the  suitors  for  the  hand  of  Dorothea  on  whom  Andreas 
Doderlein  looked  with  special  favour  was  the  mill  owner,  a  man 
by  the  name  of  Weisskopf.  Herr  Weisskopf  was  passionately  fond 
of  music.  He  had  greatly  admired  Dorothea  when  she  gave  her 
concert,  and  had  sent  her  a  laurel  wreath. 

One  day  Herr  Weisskopf  came  in  and  took  dinner  with  the 
Doderleins.  When  he  left,  Doderlein  said  to  his  daughter:  "My 
dear  Dorothea,  from  this  day  on  you  may  consider  yourself  be- 
trothed. This  admirable  man  desires  to  have  you  as  his  lawfully 
wedded  wife.  It  is  a  great  good  fortune;  the  man  is  as  rich  as 
Croesus." 


396  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

Instead  of  making  a  reply,  Dorothea  laughed  heartily.  But  she 
knew  that  the  time  had  come  when  something  had  to  be  done. 
Her  mobile  face  twitched  with  scorn,  fear,  and  desire. 

"Think  it  over;  sleep  on  it.  I  have  promised  Herr  Weisskopf  to 
let  him  know  to-morrow,"  said  Doderlein,  black-browed. 

A  week  before  this,  Andreas  Doderlein,  confidently  expecting 
that  Herr  Weisskopf  would  ask  for  the  hand  of  his  daughter,  had 
borrowed  a  thousand  marks  from  him.  The  miller  had  loaned 
him  the  money  believing  that  he  was  thereby  securing  a  promissory 
note  on  Dorothea.  Doderlein  had  placed  himself  under  obliga- 
tions, and  was  consequently  determined  to  carry  out  his  plans  with 
regard  to  the  marriage  of  his  daughter. 

But  Dorothea's  behaviour  made  it  safe  to  predict  that  objections 
would  be  raised  on  her  part.  Doderlein  was  in  trouble;  he  sought 
distraction.  Sixteen  years  ago  he  had  begun  an  opus  entitled  "All 
Souls:  a  Symphonic  Picture."  Five  pages  of  the  score  had  been 
written,  and  since  then  he  had  never  undertaken  creative  work. 
He  rummaged  around  in  his  desk,  found  the  score,  went  to  tht 
piano,  and  tried  to  take  up  the  thread  where  he  had  lost  it  sixteen 
years  ago.  He  tried  to  imagine  the  intervening  time  merely  as  » 
pause,  an  afternoon  siesta. 

It  would  not  go.  He  sighed.  He  sat  before  the  instrument, 
and  stared  at  the  paper  like  a  schoolboy  who  has  a  problem  to  solve 
but  has  forgotten  the  rule.  He  seemed  to  lament  the  loss  of  his 
artistic  ability.  He  felt  so  hollow.  The  notes  grinned  at  him; 
they  mocked  him.  His  thoughts  turned  involuntarily  to  the  miller. 
He  improvised  for  a  while.  Dorothea  stuck  her  head  in  the  door 
and  sang:  "Rhinegold,  Rhinegold,  pu-re  gold." 

He  was  enraged;  he  got  up,  slammed  the  lid  of  the  piano,  took 
his  hat  and  top  coat,  left  the  house,  and  went  out  to  see  his  friend 
in  the  suburbs. 

When  he  returned  that  night,  he  saw  Dorothea  standing  in  the 
door  with  a  man.  It  was  the  actor,  Edmund  Hahn.  They  were 
carrying  on  a  heated  conversation  in  whispers.  The  man  was  hold- 
ing Dorothea  by  the  arm,  but  when  Doderlein  became  visible  from 
the  unlighted  street,  he  uttered  an  ugly  oath  and  quickly  disap- 
peared. 

Dorothea  looked  her  father  straight,  and  impudently,  in  the  face, 
and  followed  him  into  the  dark  house. 

When  they  were  upstairs  and  had  lighted  the  lamp,  Doderlein 
turned  to  her,  and  asked  her  threateningly:  "What  do  you  mean 
by  these  immodest  associations?  Tell  me!  I  want  an  answer!" 


THE  PROMETHEAN  SYMPHONY  397 

"I  don't  want  to  marry  your  flour  sack.  That's  my  answer,"  said 
Dorothea,  with  a  defiant  toss  of  her  head. 

"Well,  we'll  see,"  said  Doderlein,  pale  with  rage  and  ploughing 
through  his  hair  with  his  fingers,  "we'll  see.  Get  out  of  here! 
I  have  no  desire  to  lose  my  well-earned  sleep  on  account  of  such 
an  ungrateful  hussy.  We'll  take  up  the  subject  again  to-morrow 
morning." 

The  next  morning  Dorothea  hastened  to  Herr  Carovius.  "Uncle," 
she  stammered,  "he  wants  to  marry  me  to  that  flour  sack." 

"Yes?  Well,  I  suppose  I'll  have  to  visit  that  second-rate  musician 
in  his  studio  again  and  give  him  a  piece  of  my  mind.  In  the 
meantime  be  calm,  my  child,  be  calm,"  said  he,  stroking  her  brown 
hair,  "Old  Carovius  is  still  alive." 

Dorothea  nestled  up  to  him,  and  smiled:  "What  would  you  say, 
Uncle,"  she  began  with  a  knavish  and  at  the  same  time  unsually 
attentive  expression  in  her  face,  "if  I  were  to  marry  Daniel 
Nothafft?  You  like  him,"  she  continued  in  a  flattering  tone,  and 
held  him  fast  by  the  shoulder  when  he  started  back,  "you  like  him, 
I  know  you  do.  I  must  marry  somebody;  for  I  do  not  wish  to  be 
an  old  maid,  and  I  can't  stand  Father  any  longer." 

Herr  Carovius  tore  himself  loose  from  her.  "To  the  insane 
asylum  with  you!"  he  cried.  "I  would  rather  see  you  go  to  bed 
with  that  meal  sack.  Is  the  Devil  in  you,  you  prostitute?  If  your 
skin  itches,  scratch  it,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  but  take  a  stable 
boy  to  do  it,  as  Empress  Katherine  of  blessed  memory  did.  Buy 
fine  dresses,  bedizen  yourself  with  tom-foolery  of  all  shades  and 
colours,  go  to  dances  and  lap  up  champagne,  make  music  or  throw 
your  damn  fiddle  on  the  dung  heap,  do  anything  you  want  to  do, 
Til  pay  for  it;  but  that  green-eyed  phantast,  that  lunk-headed  rat- 
catcher, that  woman-eater  and  music-box  bird,  no,  no!  Never! 
Send  him  humping  down  the  stairs  and  out  the  front  door!  For 
God's  sake  and  the  sake  of  all  the  saints,  don't  marry  him!  Don't, 
I  say.  If  you  do,  it's  all  off  between  you  and  me." 

There  was  such  a  look  of  hate  and  fear  in  Herr  Carovius's  face 
that  Dorothea  was  almost  frightened.  His  hair  was  as  towsled  as 
the  twigs  of  an  abandoned  bird's  nest;  water  was  dripping  from  the 
corners  of  his  mouth;  his  eyes  were  inflamed;  his  glasses  were  on 
the  tip  of  his  nose. 

Nothing  could  have  made  Dorothea  more  pleased  with  the  story 
Daniel  had  told  her  than  Herr  Carovius's  ravings.  Her  eyes  were 
opened  wide,  her  mouth  was  thirsty.  If  she  had  hesitated  at  times 
before,  she  did  so  no  more.  She  loved  money;  greed  was  a  part 


398  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

of  her  make-up  from  the  hour  she  was  born.  But  if  Herr  Carovius 
had  laid  the  whole  of  his  treasures  at  her  feet,  and  said  to  her, 
"You  may  have  them  if  you  will  renounce  Daniel  Nothafft,"  she 
would  have  replied,  "Your  money,  my  Daniel." 

Something  terribly  strange  and  strong  drew  her  to  the  man  she 

had  just  heard  so  volubly  cursed.     That  sensual  prickling  was  of 

a  more  dangerous  violence  and  warmth  in  his  presence  than  in  that 

j     of  any  other   man    she   had   ever    known;    and   she   had    known    a 

j'     number.     To  her  he  was  a  riddle  and  a  mystery;  she  wanted  to 

(solve  the  one  and  clear  up  the  other.  He  had  possessed  so  many 
women,  indubitably  more  than  he  had  confessed  to  her;  and  she 
wished  now  to  possess  him.  He  was  so  quiet,  so  clever,  so  resolute: 
she  wanted  his  quietness,  his  cleverness,  his  resoluteness.  She 
wanted  everything  he  had,  his  charm,  his  magic,  his  power  over 
men,  all  that  he  displayed  and  all  that  he  concealed. 

She  thought  of 'him  constantly;  she  thought  in  truth  of  no  one 
else,  and  nothing  else.  Her  thoughts  fluttered  about  his  picture, 
shyly,  greedily,  and  as  playfully  as  a  kitten.  He  had  managed  to 
bring  will  power  and  unity  into  her  senses.  She  wanted  to  have 
him. 

The  rain  beat  against  the  window.  Terrified  at  Dorothea's 
thoughtfulness,  Herr  Carovius  pressed  his  hands  to  his  cheeks.  "I 
see,  I  see,  you  want  to  leave  me  all  alone,"  he  said  in  a  tone  that 
sounded  like  the  howling  of  a  dog  in  the  middle  of  the  night. 
"You  want  to  deceive  me,  to  surrender  me  to  the  enemy,  to  leave 
me  nothing,  nothing  but  the  privilege  of  sitting  here  and  staring 
at  my  four  walls.  I  see,  I  see." 

"Be  still,  Uncle,  nothing  is  going  to  happen.  It  is  all  a  huge 
joke,"  said  Dorothea  with  feigned  good  humour  and  kind  inten- 
tions. She  walked  to  the  door  slowly,  looking  back  every  now  and 
then  with  a  smile  on  her  face. 


It  was  early  in  the  morning  when  Dorothea  rang  Daniel's  bell. 
Philippina  opened  the  door,  but  she  did  not  wish  to  let  Dorothea 
in.  She  forced  an  entrance,  however,  and,  standing  in  the  door, 
she  inspected  Philippina  with  the  eye  of  arrogance,  always  a  clear- 
sighted organ. 

"Look  out,  Philippin',  there's  something  rotten  here,"  murmured 
Philippina  to  herself. 


THE  PROMETHEAN  SYMPHONY  399 

Daniel  was  at  work.  He  got  up  and  looked  at  Dorothea,  who 
carefully  closed  the  door. 

"Here  I  am,  Daniel,"  she  said,  and  breathed  a  sigh  of  relief, 
like  a  swimmer  who  has  just  reached  the  land. 

"What  is  it  all  about?"  asked  Daniel,  seemingly  ill  inclined  to 
become  excited. 

"I  have  done  what  you  wanted  me  to  do,  Daniel:  I  have  broken 
away  from  them.  I  cannot  tolerate  Father  a  minute  longer.  Where 
should  I  go  if  not  to  you?" 

Daniel  went  up  to  her,  and  laid  his  hands  on  her  shoulders. 
"Girl,  girl!"  he  said  as  if  to  warn  her.  He  felt  uneasy. 

They  looked  into  each  other's  eyes  for  what  seemed  like  an 
eternity.  Daniel  was  apparently  trying  to  peer  into  the  inner- 
most recesses  of  her  soul.  Dorothea's  eyes  sparkled  with  daring; 
she  did  not  lower  her  lids.  Suddenly,  as  if  moved  from  within, 
Daniel  bent  over  and  kissed  her  on  the  forehead. 

"You  know  who  I  am,"  he  said,  and  walked  back  and  forth  in 
the  room.  "You  know  how  I  have  lived  and  how  I  am  living  at 
present.  I  am  a  guilty  man,  and  a  lonely  man.  My  nature 
craves  tenderness,  but  is  unable  to  give  tenderness  in  return.  My 
lot  is  a  hard  one,  and  whoever  decides  to  share  it  with  me  must 
be  able  to  bear  her  part  of  this  hardness.  I  am  frequently  my  own 
enemy  and  the  enemy  of  those  who  mean  well  by  me.  I  am  not 
a  humourist,  and  make  a  poor  impression  in  society.  I  can  be 
gruff,  offensive,  spiteful,  irreconcilable,  and  revengeful.  I  am 
ugly,  poor,  and  no  longer  young.  Are  you  not  afraid  of  your 
twenty-three  years,  Dorothea?" 

Dorothea  shook  her  head  vigorously. 

"Test  yourself,  Dorothea,  examine  yourself,"  he  continued 
urgently,  "don't  be  too  inexact,  too  careless  with  me,  nor  with 
yourself.  Study  the  situation  from  all  sides,  so  that  we  may  make 
no  false  calculations.  Fate,  you  know,  is  fate.  Love  can  get 
control  of  me  more  than  I  can  get  control  of  myself,  and  when 
this  takes  place  I  will  do  everything  in  my  power.  But  I  must 
have  confidence,  unlimited  confidence.  If  I  were  to  lose  con- 
fidence, I  should  be  like  a  mortal  proscribed  to  Hell,  an  outcast,  an 
evil  spirit.  Examine  yourself,  Dorothea.  You  must  know  what 
you  are  doing;  it  is  your  affair,  and  it  is  a  sacred  one." 

"I  cannot  do  otherwise,  Daniel!"  cried  Dorothea,  and  threw 
herself  on  his  bosom. 

"Then  God  be  merciful  to  us,"  said  Daniel. 


400  THE  GOOSE  MAN 


Daniel  took  Dorothea  over  to  Sylvia  von  Erfft's  at  Siegmundshof. 
He  had  written  to  her,  given  her  all  the  details,  explained  the 
entire  situation,  and  begged  her  to  take  Dorothea  in  and  entertain 
her  until  the  day  of  the  wedding.  Sylvia  had  shown  herself  most 
obliging  in  the  matter;  she  met  his  requests  with  unaffected  cor- 
diality. 

Dorothea  had  spent  two  nights  at  home,  during  which  she  had 
succeeded  in  evading  all  explanations  with  her  father.  She  did 
this  by  having  him  agree  to  give  her  three  days  to  think  it  over. 
On  the  morning  of  the  third  day,  after  her  father  had  gone  to 
the  conservatory,  she  packed  up  her  belongings  and  left  the  house. 

Andreas  Doderlein  found  the  following  letter  from  her:  "Dear 
Father:  Abandon  all  your  hopes  with  regard  to  my  marrying  Herr 
Weisskopf.  I  am  of  age  and  can  marry  whomsoever  I  wish.  I 
have  already  made  my  choice.  The  man  who  is  going  to  lead  me 
to  the  altar  is  called  Daniel  Nothafft.  He  loves  me  perhaps  even 
more  than  I  deserve,  and  I  will  make  him  a  good  wife.  This  is 
my  unalterable  decision,  and  you  yourself  will  certainly  come  to 
see  that  it  is  nobler  to  obey  the  impulses  of  one's  own  heart  than 
to  allow  cne's  self  to  be  led  on  and  blinded  by  material  considera- 
tions. Your  loving  daughter,  Dorothea." 

Andreas  Doderlein  had  a  sinking  spell.  The  letter  slipped  from 
his  fingers  and  fell  to  the  floor.  Trembling  in  his  whole  body, 
he  walked  up  to  the  covered  table,  took  a  glass  and  hurled  it  against 
the  wall.  The  glass  broke  into  a  thousand  pieces.  "I  will  choke 
you,  you  impious  toad!"  he  panted,  shook  his  clenched  fist,  went  to 
Dorothea's  room,  and,  seized  with  boundless  wrath,  upset  the  chairs 
and  the  little  dressing  table. 

The  maid,  terrified,  ran  into  the  living  room.  She  saw  Doro- 
thea's letter  lying  on  the  floor,  picked  it  up,  and  read  it.  When 
she  heard  her  mad  master  returning,  she  ran  down  stairs  to  the 
ground  floor,  rang  Hcrr  Carovius's  bell,  and  showed  him  the  letter. 
His  face  turned  yellow  as  he  read  it.  The  maid  uttered  a  shrill, 
piercing  cry,  snatched  the  letter  from  Herr  Carovius's  hands,  and 
ran  out  into  the  court,  for  she  heard  Andreas  Doderlein  stumbling 
down  the  steps.  He  wanted  to  call  the  police  and  have  them 
lock  up  the  abductor  of  his  daughter.  Catching  sight  of  Herr 
Carovius  in  the  hall,  he  stopped  and  fixed  his  eyes  on  him.  In 
them  there  was  a  sea  of  anger;  and  yet  it  was  obvious  that  Andreas 
Doderlein  was  eager  to  ask  a  question  or  two.  It  seemed  indeed 


THE  PROMETHEAN  SYMPHONY  401 

that  just  one  conciliatory  statement,  even  a  single  gesture  on  the 
part  of  the  man  whom  he  had  scrupulously  avoided  for  years, 
would  make  bye-gones  be  bye-gones  and  convert  two  implacable 
foes  into  friends,  colleagues  indeed  in  the  business  of  revenge  and 
punishment. 

But  Herr  Carovius  was  done  with  the  world.  His  face  was 
distorted;  grimaces  of  unrelieved  meanness  furrowed  his  brow;  his 
contempt  knew  no  bounds.  He  turned  about  and  slammed  the 
door  leading  into  his  apartment  with  a  bang  that  showed  his  inten- 
tion of  shutting  himself  up  in  his  own  stronghold. 

Andreas  Doderlein  got  as  far  as  the  entrance  to  the  Town  Hall. 
There  he  was  suddenly  seized  with  grave  doubts.  He  stared  at 
the  pavement  for  a  while,  sad  and  sinister,  and  then  started  back 
home.  His  steps  were  not  half  so  impetuous  as  they  had  been 
on  the  way  over;  they  gave  evidence  of  weakened  will  and  fading 
energy. 

Hardly  had  he  reached  home  when  Daniel  was  announced. 
"You  have  the  boldness,  Sir,"  he  cried  out  to  Daniel  on  his  enter- 
ing. "You  have  the  boldness  to  appear  in  my  sight?  By  the 
gods  above,  you  are  going  far!" 

"I  will  accept  any  challenge  you  make,"  said  Daniel,  with  the 
chilly  dignity  that  was  characteristic  of  him  in  such  circumstances 
and  that  never  failed  to  have  a  sobering  effect  on  his  potential 
antagonist.  "I  have  nothing  to  fear.  I  should  like  to  live  in 
peace  with  the  father  of  my  wife,  and  for  this  reason  I  have  come 
to  you." 

"Do  you  know  what  you  are  doing  to  me?  You  have  stolen  my 
daughter,  man!"  cried  Doderlein  with  pathos.  "But  just  wait. 
I  will  checkmate  your  plans.  I  will  make  you  feel  the  full  measure 
of  my  power." 

Daniel  smiled  contemptuously.  "I  am  certain  of  that,"  he 
replied.  "I  will  feel  your  power  as  long  as  I  live;  I  have  always 
felt  it.  But  I  have  never  submitted  to  it,  and  up  to  the  present  I 
have  always  been  able  to  break  it.  Think  it  over!  Recall  my  past 
history!  And  devote  a  few  of  your  meditative  moments  to  your 
child.  Adieu!"  With  that  Daniel  left. 

Andreas  Doderlein  was  511  at  ease.  The  man's  smile  followed 
him  wherever  he  went.  What  could  the  desperado  be  planning? 
A  bad  conscience  paralyses  evil  determinations.  For  more  than  a 
week,  Doderlein  waged  perpetual  war  with  his  pride.  And  then? 
Daniel  did  not  allow  himself  to  be  seen;  he  received  no  news 
of  any  kind  from  Dorothea;  and,  climax  of  it  all,  Herr  Weisskopf 


402  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

notified  him  that  his  note  for  one  thousand  marks,  with  interest, 
was  due.  Doderlein  saw  that  there  was  nothing  to  be  done  about 
it  all  except  to  recognise  the  denouement  as  a  fact  and  not  as  a 
stage  scene.  And  one  day  he  hobbled  up  the  steps  of  the  house 
on  ^gydius  Place. 

"I  am  gl  d  to  see  you,"  said  Daniel  as  he  reached  out  his  hand 
to  his  visitor. 

Andreas  Doderlein  spoke  of  a  father's  bleeding  heart,  of  the 
crushing  of  proud  hopes,  of  the  impiety  of  youth,  and  the  lone- 
someness  of  old  age.  And  then,  rather  disconnectedly,  beating  a 
tattoo  with  the  fingers  of  his  big  hand  on  the  top  of  the  table,  he 
spoke  of  the  constraint  in  which  he  found  himself  with  reference 
to  the  opulent  owner  of  the  mill.  He  told  Daniel  he  had  gone 
on  a  man's  note,  had  been  suddenly  obliged  to  redeem  the  note,  and 
not  having  so  much  ready  money  at  his  disposal,  had  accepted  a 
loan  from  the  rich  aspirant  for  Dorothea's  hand. 

Daniel  was  forced  to  admit  that  his  troubles  were  humiliating 
and  that  the  money  would  have  to  be  raised.  Doderlein  said  it 
amounted  to  fifteen  hundred  marks.  He  was  surprised  himself 
when  he  mentioned  the  sum  which  assured  him  a  clear  gain  of 
fifty  per  cent.  It  had  been  a  clever  idea,  serving  as  it  did  to  put 
the  generosity  of  his  future  son-in-law  to  test.  At  the  bottom  of 
his  heart  he  felt  that  his  action  was  dishonourable,  and  was  conse- 
quently touched  when  Daniel,  giving  this  inroad  on  his  savings 
but  a  moment's  thought,  promised  to  send  him  the  money  the 
following  day. 

"You  make  me  feel  ashamed  of  myself,  Daniel,  really  you  do. 
Let  us  bury  the  hatchet!  We  are  after  all  colleagues  in  Apollo. 
Or  aren't  we?  Call  me  Father,  and  I  will  call  you  Son!  Address 
me  with  Du,  and  I  will  follow  your  example." 

Daniel  gave  him  his  hand  without  saying  a  word. 

Doderlein  asked  about  Dorothea;  and  when  Daniel  told  him 
where  she  was,  he  seemed  quite  contented.  "Tell  her  my  house 
and  my  arms  are  open  to  her;  tell  her  of  the  change  in  the  constel- 
lation," he  said  softly.  "We  have  both  done  each  other  injustice 
and  have  both  repented." 

Daniel  replied  quite  conventionally  that  he  thought  it  better 
to  leave  Dorothea  with  Sylvia  von  Auffenberg. 

"As  you  wish,  my  son,"  said  Andreas  Doderlein,  "I  bow  to  the 
claims  of  your  young  happiness.  Now  we  should  have  a  bottle 
of  Malvoisie  or  Moselle,  so  that  I  can  drink  to  the  health  of  my 
dear,  unruly  daughter.  Or  don't  you  care  to?" 


THE  PROMETHEAN  SYMPHONY  403 

Daniel  went  to  send  Philippina  to  the  Golden  Posthorn.  But 
Philippina  had  gone  out  with  Agnes.  He  saw  one  of  the  maids 
from  one  of  the  other  apartments  standing  on  the  steps,  and  got 
her  to  run  the  errand.  It  was  a  long  while  before  she  returned, 
and  when  the  wine  was  finally  poured  out,  Doderlein  had  not  time 
to  drink:  he  was  scheduled  to  give  a  lecture  in  the  conservatory  at 
seven.  He  drank  about  half  of  his  glass,  and  then  took  hasty  leave 
of  Daniel,  shaking  his  hand  with  unwonted  fervour. 

Daniel  sat  for  a  while  thinking  it  all  over.  There  was  a  knock 
at  the  door,  and  old  Jordan  came  in.  "May  I?"  he  asked. 

Daniel  nodded.  Jordan  took  a  seat  on  the  chair  Doderlein  had 
been  sitting  on.  He  looked  into  Daniel's  face  quizzically.  "Is  it 
true,  Daniel,  that  you  are  going  to  get  married  again?  That  you 
are  going  to  marry  the  Doderlein  girl?" 

"Yes,  Father,  it  is  true,"  replied  Daniel.  He  got  a  fresh  glass, 
filled  it,  and  pushed  it  over  to  the  old  man.  "Drink,  Father!"  he 
said. 

The  old  man  sipped  the  wine  with  an  air  of  adoration.  "It 
must  be  nine  or  ten  years  since  I  have  had  any  wine,"  he  said  more 
or  less  to  himself. 

"You  have  not  had  a  happy  life,"  replied  Daniel. 

"I  will  not  complain,  Daniel.  I  bear  it  because  I  have  to.  And 
who  knows?  Perhaps  there  is  still  a  measure  of  joy  in  store  for 
me.  Perhaps;  who  knows?" 

The  two  men  sat  in  silence  and  drank.  It  was  so  still  that  you 
could  hear  the  fluttering  of  the  light  in  the  lamp. 

"Where  can  Philippina  be?"  asked  Daniel. 

"Yes,  Philippina.  I  had  forgot  to  tell  you,"  began  old  Jordan 
sorrowfully.  "She  came  to  me  this  afternoon,  and  told  me  she 
was  going  over  to  Frau  Hadcbusch's  with  Agnes  and  was  going 
to  stay  there  until  after  the  wedding.  But  she  spoke  in  such  a 
confused  way  that  I  couldn't  make  out  just  what  she  planned  to  do. 
It  sounded  in  fact  as  though  she  were  thinking  of  leaving  the 
house  for  good  and  all.  I  wonder  whether  the  girl  isn't  a  little 
off  in  her  head?  Day  before  yesterday  I  heard  an  awful  racket 
in  the  kitchen;  and  when  I  went  down,  I  saw  at  least  six  plates 
lying  on  the  floor  all  smashed  to  pieces.  And  as  if  this  was  not 
enough,  she  threatened  to  throw  the  dishwater  on  me.  She  was 
swearing  like  a  trooper.  Now  tell  me:  how  is  this?  Can  she  go 
over  to  Frau  Hadebusch's,  and  take  Agnes  with  her  without  getting 
any  one's  consent?" 

Daniel  made  no  reply.     The  thought  of  Philippina  filled  him 


4o4  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

with  anguish ;  he  feared  some  misfortune.      He  felt  that  he  would 
have  to  let  her  have  her  way. 


In  the  night  Daniel  became  very  much  excited.  He  left  the 
house,  and,  despite  the  darkness  and  the  snow  storm,  wandered 
out  to  the  country  quite  unmindful  of  the  cold  and  snow  and 
the  wind. 

He  listened  to  the  whisperings  of  his  soul ;  he  took  council 
with  himself.  He  looked  up  at  the  great  black  vaulted  arch  of 
heaven  as  though  he  were  beseeching  the  powers  above  to  send 
him  the  light  he  felt  he  needed.  The  morning  of  the  approach- 
ing day  seemed  bleaker,  blacker  to  him  than  the  night  that  was 
passing.  He  was  lost  in  anxiety:  he  went  over  to  his  graves. 

He  did  not  stop  to  think  until  well  on  his  way  that  the  gate 
to  the  cemetery  would  be  closed;  but  he  kept  on  going.  He 
looked  around  for  a  place  in  the  wall  where  he  might  climb  over. 
Finally  he  found  one,  climbed  up,  scratched  his  hands  painfully, 
leaped  down  into  some  snow-covered  hedges,  and  then  wandered 
around  with  his  burden  of  grief  over  the  stormy,  desolate  field  of 
the  dead.  As  he  stood  before  Gertrude's  grave  he  was  overwhelmed 
with  the  feeling  of  the  hour:  there  were  voices  in  the  storm;  he 
felt  that  the  horror  and  the  memory  of  it  all  would  hurl  him  to 
the  ground.  But  when  he  stood  by  the  grave  of  Eleanore,  he  felt 
his  peace  return.  The  clouds  suddenly  opened  on  the  distant 
horizon,  and  a  moonbeam  danced  about  him. 

It  was  almost  morning  when  he  reached  home. 

A  week  later  he  went  over  to  Siegmundshof  and  got  Dorothea. 

Sylvia  and  Dorothea  came  down  through  a  snow-covered  alley 
to  meet  him.  They  were  walking  arm  in  arm,  and  Sylvia  was 
laughing  at  Dorothea's  easy-flowing  conversation.  They  seemed  to 
be  getting  along  perfectly  together:  there  could  be  no  mistaking 
the  picture  he  saw  before  him.  Sylvia  told  Daniel  when  she  was 
alone  with  him  that  she  had  taken  a  great  liking  to  Dorothea.  She 
remarked  that  'jhcr  cheerfulness  was  irresistible  and  contagious,  and 
that  when  she  was  with  children  she  became  a  child  herself. 

Yet,  despite  all  this,  Sylvia  studied  Daniel.  And  when  Dorothea 
was  present  she  studied  her  too:  she  cast  fleeting,  searching,  unas- 
sured glances  at  them — at  Daniel  and  at  Dorothea. 

Daniel  and  Dorothea  were  married  on  a  sunny  day  in  December. 


DOROTHEA 


FOR  the  past  fortnight,  Philippina  and  Agnes  had  been  living 
at  Frau  Hadebusch's.  A  message  came  from  Daniel  telling  Philip- 
pina that  she  and  Agnes  should  return,  or,  if  she  preferred  to  stay 
with  Frau  Hadebusch,  she  should  send  Agnes  home  at  once. 

"There  you  have  it,"  said  Frau  Hadebusch,  "the  master  speaks." 

"Ah,  him — he's  been  speakin'  to  me  for  a  long  while.  Much 
good  it  does  him,"  said  Philippina.  "The  child  stays  with  me, 
and  I'm  not  going  back.  That  settles  it!  What,  Agnes?  Yes?" 

Agnes  was  sitting  on  the  bench  by  the  stove  with  Henry  the  idiot, 
reading  the  greasy  pages  of  a  cheap  novel.  When  Philippina 
spoke  to  her,  she  looked  up  in  a  distracted  way  and  smiled.  The 
twelve-year-old  child  had  a  perfectly  expressionless  face;  and  as 
she  never  got  out  of  the  house  for  any  length  of  time,  her  skin 
was  almost  yellow. 

"It  ain't  no  use  to  try  to  buck  him,"  continued  Frau  Hadebusch, 
who  looked  as  old  as  the  mountains  and  resembled  generally  a 
crippled  witch,  "he  c'n  demand  the  kid,  and  if  he  does  he'll  git 
her.  If  you  ain't  careful,  I'll  get  mixed  up  in  the  mess  before 
long." 

"Well,  how  do  you  feel  about  it,  Agnes?  Do  you  want  to  go 
back  to  your  daddy?"  said  Philippina,  turning  to  the  girl,  and 
looking  at  Frau  Hadebusch  in  a  knowing  way. 

Agnes's  face  clouded  up.  She  hated  her  father.  This  was 
the  point  to  which  Philippina  had  brought  matters  by  her  inces- 
sant whisperings  and  ugly  remarks  behind  Daniel's  back.  Agnes 
was  convinced  that  she  was  a  burden  to  her  father,  and  his  mar- 
riage had  merely  confirmed  what  she  already  felt  she  knew.  Deep 
in  her  silent  soul  she  carried  the  picture  of  her  prematurely  deceased 
mother,  as  if  it  were  that  of  a  woman  who  had  been  murdered, 
sacrificed.  Philippina  had  told  her  how  her  mother  had  committed 
suicide;  it  was  a  fearful  tale  in  her  language.  It  had  been  the 
topic  of  conversation  between  her  and  her  charge  on  many  a  cold, 
dark  winter  evening.  Agnes  always  said  that  when  she  was  big 
and  could  talk,  she  would  take  vengeance  on  her  father. 

When  she  could  talk!  That  was  her  most  ardent  wish.  For 

405 


406  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

she  was  silent-born.  Her  soul  pined  in  a  prison  that  was  much 
harsher  and  harder  than  that  in  which  her  mother's  soul  had  been 
housed  and  harassed.  Gertrude  had  some  bright  moments;  Agnes 
never.  She  was  incapable  of  enthusiasm;  she  could  not  look  up. 
For  her  heart,  her  soul  was  not  merely  asleep,  torpid,  lethargic; 
it  was  hopelessly  dried  up,  withered.  Life  was  not  in  it. 

"I  am  not  going  to  those  Doderleins,"  she  said,  crying. 

But  in  the  evening  Daniel  came  over.  He  took  Philippina  to 
one  side,  and  had  a  serious  talk  with  her.  He  explained  the  rea- 
sons for  his  getting  married  a  third  time  as  well  as  he  could 
without  going  too  deeply  into  the  subject.  "I  needed  a  wife;  I 
needed  a  woman  to  keep  house  for  me;  I  needed  a  companion. 
Philippina,  I  am  very  grateful  to  you  for  what  you  have  done,  but 
there  must  also  be  a  woman  in  my  home  who  can  cheer  me  up, 
turn  my  thoughts  to  higher  things.  I  have  a  heavy  calling;  that 
you  cannot  appreciate.  So  don't  get  stubborn,  Philippina.  Pack 
up  your  things,  and  come  back  home.  How  can  we  get  alo»g 
without  you?" 

For  the  first  time  in  his  life  he  spoke  to  her  as  though  she 
were  a  woman  and  a  human  being.  Philippina  stared  at  him. 
Then  she  burst  out  into  a  loud,  boisterous  laugh,  and  began  to 
show  her  whole  supply  of  scorn.  "Jesus,  Daniel,  how  you  c'n  flatter 
a  person!  Who'd  a  thought  it!  You've  always  been  such  a  sour 
dough.  Very  well.  Say:  'Dear  Philippina!'  Say  it  real  slow: 
'D-e-a-r  Philippina,'  and  then  I'll  come." 

Daniel  looked  into  the  face  of  the  girl,  who  never  did  seem 
young  and  who  had  aged  fearfully  in  the  last  few  months.  "Non- 
sense!" he  cried,  and  turned  away. 

Philippina  stamped  the  floor  with  her  foot.  Henry,  the  idiot, 
came  out  into  the  hall,  holding  a  lamp  above  his  head. 

"Does  the  sanctimonious  clerk  still  live  here?"  asked  Daniel, 
looking  up  at  the  crooked  old  stairway,  while  a  flood  of  memories 
came  rushing  over  him. 

"Thank  God,  no!"  snarled  Philippina.  "He'd  be  the  last 
straw.  I  feel  sick  at  the  stomach  when  1  sec  a  man." 

Daniel  again  looked  into  her  detestable,  ugly,  distorted,  and 
wicked  face.  He  was  accustomed  to  question  everything,  eyes  and 
bodies,  about  their  existence  in  terms  of  tones,  or  their  trans- 
formation into  tones.  Here  he  suddenly  felt  the  toneless;  he  had 
the  feeling  one  might  have  on  looking  at  a  deep-sea  fish:  it  is  life- 
less, toneless.  He  thought  of  his  Eva;  he  longed  for  his  Eva, 
Just  then  Agnes  came  out  of  the  door  to  look  for  Philippina. 


DOROTHEA  407 

He  laid  his  hand  on  Agnes's  hair,  and  said  good-naturedly, 
looking  at  Philippina:  "Well,  then — d-e-a-r  Philippina,  come  back 
home!" 

Agnes  jerked  herself  away  from  him;  he  looked  at  the  child 
amazed;  he  was  angry,  too.  Philippina  folded  her  hands,  bowed 
her  head,  and  murmured  with  much  humility:  "Very  well,  Daniel, 
we'll  be  back  to-morrow." 


Philippina  arrived  at  the  front  door  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing. In  one  hand  ishe  carried  her  bundle;  by  the  other  she  led 
Agnes,  then  studying  her  milieu  with  uneasy  eyes. 

Dorothea  opened  the  door.  She  was  neatly  and  tastefully 
dressed:  she  wore  a  blue  gingham  dress  and  a  white  apron  with  a 
lace  border.  Around  her  neck  was  a  gold  chain,  and  suspended 
from  the  chain  a  medallion. 

"Oh,  the  children!"  she  cried  cheerfully,  "Philippina  and  Agnes. 
What  do  you  think  of  that!  God  bless  you,  children.  You  are 
home  at  last."  She  wanted  to  hug  Agnes,  but  the  child  pulled 
away  from  her  as  timidly  as  she  had  pulled  away  from  her  father 
yesterday.  In  either  case,  she  pulled  away! 

Philippina  screwed  her  mouth  into  a  knot  on  hearing  a  woman 
ten  years  her  junior  call  her  a  child;  she  looked  at  Dorothea  from 
head  to  foot. 

Dorothea  scarcely  noticed  her.  "Just  imagine,  Philippin',  the 
cook  didn't  come  to-day,  so  I  thought  I  would  try  my  own  hand," 
said  Dorothea  with  glib  gravity,  "but  I  don't  know,  the  soup  meat 
is  still  as  hard  as  a  rock.  Won't  you  come  and  see  what's  the 
matter?"  She  took  Philippina  into  the  kitchen. 

"Ah,  you've  got  to  have  a  lid  on  the  pot,  and  what's  more, 
that  ain't  a  regular  fire,"  remarked  Philippina  superciliously. 

Dorothea  had  already  turned  to  something  else.  She  had  found 
a  glass  of  preserved  fruit,  had  opened  it,  taken  a  long-handled 
spoon,  dived  into  it,  put  the  spoon  to  her  mouth,  and  was  licking 
away  for  dear  life.  "Tastes  good,"  she  said,  "tastes  like  lemon. 
Try  it,  Philippin'."  She  held  the  spoon  to  Philippina's  lips  so  that 
she  could  try  it.  Philippina  thrust  the  spoon  rudely  to  one  side. 

"No,  no,  you  have  got  to  try  it.  I  insist.  Taste  it!"  continued 
Dorothea,  and  poked  the  spoon  tightly  against  Philippina's  lips. 
"I  insist,  I  insist,"  she  repeated,  half  beseechingly,  half  in  the 
tone  of  a  command,  so  that  Philippina,  who  somehow  or  other 


4o8  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

could  not  find  her  veteran  power  of  resistance,  and  in  order  to 
have  peace,  let  the  spoon  be  shoved  into  her  mouth. 

Just  then  old  Jordan  came  out  into  the  hall,  and  with  him  the 
chimney-sweeper  who  wished  to  clean  the  chimney. 

"Herr  Inspector,  Herr  Inspector,"  cried  Dorothea,  laughing; 
and  when  the  old  man  followed  her  call,  she  gave  him  a  spoonful, 
too.  The  chimney-sweep  likewise;  he  had  to  have  his.  And  last 
but  not  least  came  Agnes. 

They  all  laughed;  a  faint  smile  even  ventured  across  Agnes's 
pale  face,  while  Daniel,  frightened  from  his  room  by  the  hubbub, 
came  out  and  stood  in  the  kitchen  door  and  laughed  with  the  rest. 

"Do  you  see,  Daniel,  do  you  see?  They  all  eat  out  of  my 
hand,"  said  Dorothea  contentedly.  "They  all  eat  out  of  my  hand. 
That's  the  way  I  like  to  have  things.  To  your  health,  folks!" 


One  afternoon  Dorothea,  with  an  open  letter  in  her  hand,  came 
rushing  into  Daniel's  room,  where  he  was  working. 

"Listen,  Daniel,  Frau  Feistelmann  invites  me  over  to  a  party  at 
her  house  to-morrow.  May  I  go? " 

"You  are  disturbing  me,  my  dear.  Can't  you  see  you  are  up- 
setting me?"  asked  Daniel  reproachfully. 

"Oh,  I  see,"  breathed  Dorothea,  and  looked  helplessly  at  the  stack 
of  scores  that  lay  on  the  top  of  the  table.  "I  am  to  take  my 
violin  along  and  play  a  piece  or  two  for  the  people." 

Daniel  gazed  into  space  without  being  able  to  comprehend  her 
remarks.  He  was  composing. 

Dorothea  lost  her  patience.  She  stepped  up  to  the  place  on  the 
wall  where  the  mask  of  Zingarella  had  been  hanging  since  his 
return  home.  "Daniel,  I  have  been  wanting  for  some  time  to  ask 
you  what  that  thing  iis.  Why  do  you  keep  it  there?  What's  it 
for?  It  annoys  me  with  its  everlasting  grin." 

Daniel  woke  up.  "That  is  what  you  call  a  grin?"  he  asked,  shak- 
ing his  head;  "Is  it  possible?  That  smile  from  the  world  beyond 
appeals  to  you  as  a  grin?" 

"Yes,"  replied  Dorothea  defiantly,  "the  thing  is  grinning.  And 
I  don't  like  it;  I  can't  stand  that  silly  face;  I  don't  like  it  simply 
because  you  do  like  it  so  much.  In  fact,  you  seem  to  like  it  better 
than  you  do  me." 

"No  childishness,  Dorothea!"  said  Daniel  quietly.  "You  must 
get  your  mind  on  higher  things;  and  you  must  respect  my  spirits." 


DOROTHEA  409 

Dorothea  became  silent.  She  did  not  understand  him.  She 
looked  at  him  with  a  touch  of  distrust.  She  thought  the  mask 
was  a  picture  of  one  of  his  old  sweethearts.  She  made  a  mouth. 

"You  said  something  about  playing  at  the  party,  Dorothea," 
continued  Daniel.  "Do  you  realise  that  I  never  heard  you  play? 
I  will  frankly  confess  to  you  that  heretofore  I  have  been  afraid  to 
hear  you.  I  could  tolerate  only  the  excellent;  or  the  promise  of 
excellence.  You  may  show  both;  and  yet,  what  is  the  cause  of 
my  fear?  You  have  not  practised  in  a  long  while;  not  once  since 
we  have  been  living  together.  And  yet  you  wish  to  play  in 
public?  That  is  strange,  Dorothea.  Be  so  good  as  to  get  your 
violin  and  play  a  piece  for  me,  won't  you?" 

Dorothea  went  into  the  next  room,  got  her  violin  case,  came 
out,  took  the  violin,  and  began  to  rub  the  bow  with  rosin.  As 
she  was  tuning  the  A  string,  she  lifted  her  eyebrows  and  said:  "Do 
you  really  want  me  to  play?" 

She  bit  her  lips  and  played  an  etude  by  Fiorillo.  Having  fin- 
ished it  but  not  having  drawn  a  word  of  comment  from  Daniel, 
she  again  took  up  the  violin  and  played  a  rather  lamentable  selec- 
tion by  Wieniawski. 

Daniel  maintained  his  silence  for  a  long  while.  "Pretty  good, 
Dorothea,"  he  said  at  last.  "You  have,  other  things  being  equal, 
a  very  pleasant  pastime  there." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  asked  Dorothea  with  noticeable  rapidity, 
a  heavy  blush  colouring  her  cheeks. 

"Is  it  anything  more  than  that,  Dorothea?" 

"What  do  you  mean?"  she  repeated,  embarrassed  and  indignant. 
"I  should  think  that  my  violin  is  more  than  a  pastime." 

Daniel  got  up,  walked  over  to  her,  took  the  bow  gently  from  her 
hands,  seized  it  by  both  ends,  and  broke  it  in  two. 

Dorothea  screamed,  and  looked  at  him  in  hopeless  consternation. 

With  great  earnestness  Daniel  replied:  "If  the  music  I  hear  is 
not  of  unique  superiority,  it  sounds  in  my  ears  like  something 
that  has  been  hashed  over  a  thousand  times.  My  wife  must  con- 
sider herself  quite  above  a  reasonably  melodious  dilettantism." 

Tears  rushed  to  Dorothea's  eyes.  Again  she  was  unable  to  grasp 
the  meaning  of  it  all.  She  even  imagined  that  Daniel  was  making 
a  conscious  effort  to  be  cruel  to  her. 

For  her  violin  playing  had  been  a  means  of  pleasing — pleasing 
herself,  the  world.  It  had  been  a  means  of  rising  in  the  world, 
of  compelling  admiration  in  others  and  blinding  others.  This  was 
the  only  consideration  that  made  her  submit  to  the  stern  discipline 


4io  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

her  father  imposed  upon  her.  She  possessed  ambition,  but  she 
sold  herself  to  praise  without  regard  for  the  praiser.  And  whatever 
an  agreement  of  unknown  origin  demanded  in  the  way  of  feeling, 
sht  fancied  she  could  satisfy  it  by  keeping  her  mind  on  her  own 
wishes,  pleasures,  and  delights  while  playing. 

Daniel  put  his  arms  around  her  and  kissed  her.  She  broke  away 
from  him  in  1  petulance,  and  went  over  to  the  window.  "You 
might  have  told  me  that  I  do  not  play  well  enough  for  you,"  she 
exclaimed  angrily  and  sobbed;  "there  was  no  need  for  you  to  break 
my  bow.  I  never  play.  It  never  occurred  to  me  to  bother  you 
by  playing."  She  wept  like  a  spoiled  child. 

It  cost  Daniel  a  good  deal  of  persuasion  to  pacify  her.  Finally 
he  saw  that  there  was  no  use  to  talk  to  her;  he  sighed  and  said 
nothing  more.  After  a  while  he  took  her  pocket  handkerchief, 
and  dried  the  tears  from  her  eyes,  laughing  as  he  did  so.  "What 
was  really  in  my  mind  was  that  party  at  Frau  Feistelmann's.  I  did 
not  want  you  to  go.  For  I  do  not  put  much  faith  in  that  kind  of 
entertainment.  They  do  not  enrich  you,  though  they  do  incite  all 
kinds  of  desires.  But  because  I  have  treated  you  harshly,  you  may 
go.  Possibly  it  will  make  you  forget  your  troubles,  you  little 
fool." 

"Oh,  I  thank  you  for  your  offer;  but  I  don't  want  to  go," 
replied  Dorothea  snappishly,  and  left  the  room. 


Yet  Dorothea  said  the  next  day  at  the  dinner  table  that  she  was 
going  to  accept  the  invitation.  It  would  be  much  easier  just  to  go 
and  have  it  over  with,  she  remarked,  than  to  stay  away  and  explain 
her  absence.  She  said  this  in  a  way  that  would  lead  you  to  believe 
that  it  had  cost  her  much  effort  to  come  to  her  decision. 

"Certainly,  go!"  said  Daniel.  "I  have  already  advised  you  to  do 
it  myself." 

She  had  had  a  dark  blue  velvet  dress  made,  and  she  wanted  to 
wear  it  for  the  first  time  on  this  occasion. 

Toward  five  o'clock  Daniel  went  to  his  bedroom.  He  saw 
Dorothea  standing  before  the  mirror  in  her  new  dress.  It  was  a 
tall,  narrow  mirror  on  a  console.  Dorothea  had  received  it  from 
her  father  as  a  wedding  present. 

"What  is  the  matter  with  her?"  thought  Daniel,  on  noticing 
her  complete  lack  of  excitement.  She  was  as  if  lost  in  the  reflec- 


DOROTHEA  411 

tion  of  herself  in  the  mirror.  There  was  something  rigid,  drawn, 
transported  about  her  eyes.  She  did  not  see  that  Daniel  was  stand- 
ing in  the  room.  When  she  raised  her  arm  and  turned  her  head, 
it  was  to  enjoy  these  gestures  in  the  mirror. 

"Dorothea!"  said  Daniel  gently. 

She  started,  looked  at  him  thoughtfully,  and  , smiled  a  heady 
smile. 

Daniel  was  anxious,  apprehensive. 


"I  am  related  to  Daniel,  and  we  must  address  each  other  by  the 
familiar  Du,"  said  Philippina  to  Dorothea.  Daniel's  wife  agreed. 

Every  morning  when  Dorothea  came  into  the  kitchen  Philippina 
would  say:  "Well,  what  did  you  dream?" 

"I  dreamt  I  was  at  the  station  and  it  was  wartime,  and  some 
gipsies  came  along  and  carried  me  off,"  said  Dorothea  on  one 
occasion. 

"Station  means  an  unexpected  visit;  war  means  discord  with 
various  personalities;  and  gipsies  mean  that  you  are  going  to  have 
to  do  with  some  flippant  people."  All  this  Philippina  rattled  off  in 
the  High  German  of  her  secret  code. 

Philippina  was  also  an  adept  in  geomancy.  Dorothea  would 
often  sit  by  her  side,  and  ask  her  whether  this  fellow  or  that  fellow 
were  in  love  with  her,  whether  this  girl  loved  that  fellow  and 
the  other  girl  another,  and  so  on  through  the  whole  table  of  local 
infatuations.  Philippina  would  make  a  number  of  dots  on  a  sheet 
of  paper,  fill  in  the  numbers,  hold  the  list  up  to  the  light,  and 
divulge  the  answer  of  the  oracle. 

In  a  very  short  while  the  two  were  one  heart,  one  soul.  Doro- 
thea could  always  count  on  Philippina's  laughter  of  approval  when 
she  fell  into  one  of  her  moods  of  excessive  friskiness.  And  if 
Agnes  failed  to  show  the  proper  amount  of  interest,  Philippina 
would  poke  her  in  the  ribs  and  exclaim:  "You  little  rascallion,  has 
the  cat  got  your  tongue?" 

Agnes  would  then  sneak  off  in  mournful  silence  to  her  school 
books,  and  sit  for  hours  over  the  simplest  kind  of  a  problem  in  the 
whole  arithmetic.  Dorothea  would  occasionally  bring  her  a  piece 
of  taffy.  She  would  wrap  it  up,  put  it  in  her  pocket,  and  give  it 
the  next  day  to  a  school-mate  from  whose  note  book  she  had  copied 
her  sums  in  subtraction. 


412  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

Herr  Seelenfromm  stopped  Philippina  on  the  street,  and  said  to 
her:  "Well,  how  are  you  getting  along?  How  is  the  young  wife 
making  out? " 

"Oi,  oi,  we're  living  on  the  fat  of  the  land,  I  say,"  Philippina 
replied,  stretching  her  mouth  from  ear  to  ear.  "Chicken  every 
day,  cake  too,  wine  always  on  hand,  and  one  guest  merely  opens 
the  door  on  another." 

"Nothafft  must  have  made  a  pile  of  money,"  remarked  Herr 
Seelenfromm  in  amazement. 

"Yes,  he  must.  Nobody  works  at  our  house.  The  wife's  pocket- 
book  at  least  is  always  crammed." 

The  sky  was  blue,  the  sun  was  bright,  spring  had  come. 

VI 

Andreas  Doderlein  always  took  Sunday  dinner  with  his  children. 
He  loved  a  juicy  leg  of  pork,  a  salad  garnished  with  greens  and 
eggs,  and  a  tart  drowned  in  sugar.  Old  Jordan,  who  was  privileged 
to  sit  at  the  table,  let  the  individual  morsels  dissolve  on  his  tongue. 
He  had  never  had  such  delicacies  placed  before  him  in  his  life. 
At  times  he  would  cast  a  glance  of  utter  astonishment  at  Daniel. 

He  very  rarely  took  part  in  the  conversation.  As  soon  as  the 
dishes  had  been  removed,  he  would  get  up  and  quietly  go  to  his 
room. 

"A  very  remarkable  old  man,"  said  Andreas  Doderlein  one  Sun- 
day, as  he  sat  tipped  back  on  his  chair,  picking  his  teeth. 

"Ah,  we  have  our  troubles  with  him,"  said  Dorothea  abusively, 
"he  is  an  incorrigible  pot-watcher.  He  comes  to  the  kitchen  ten 
times  a  day,  sticks  his  nose  up  in  the  air,  asks  what  we  are  going 
to  have  for  dinner,  and  then  goes  out  and  stands  in  the  hall,  with 
the  result  that  our  guests  come  and  stumble  over  him." 

Andreas  Doderlein   emitted  a  growl  of  lament. 

"How  are  your  finances,  my  son?"  he  asked,  turning  to  Daniel 
with  an  air  of  marked  affability.  "Would  you  not  like  to  bolster 
up  your  income  by  taking  a  position  in  the  conservatory?  You 
would  have  time  for  it;  your  work  as  organist  at  St.  TEgydius  does 
not  take  up  all  your  time.  Herold  is  going  to  be  retired,  you 
know.  He  is  seventy-five  and  no  longer  able  to  meet  the  require- 
ments. All  that  we  will  have  to  do  will  be  for  me  to  give  you 
my  backing.  Three  thousand  marks  a  year,  allocation  to  your 
widow  after  ten  years  of  service,  extra  fees — I  should  think  you 
would  regard  that  as  a  most  enticing  offer.  Or  don't  you?" 


DOROTHEA  413 

Dorothea  ran  up  to  her  father  in  a  spirit  of  unrestrained  jubila- 
tion, threw  her  arms  around  his  bulky  body,  and  kissed  him  on  his 
flabby  cheek. 

"No  thanks  to  me,  my  child,"  said  the  Olympian;  "to  stand 
by  you  two  is  of  course  my  duty." 

"What  sort  of  a  swollen  stranger  is  that,  anyhow? "  thought 
Daniel  to  himself.  "What  does  he  want  of  me?  Why  does  he 
come  into  my  house  and  sit  down  at  my  table?  Why  is  he  so 
familiar  with  me?  Why  does  he  blow  his  breath  on  me? "  Daniel 
was  silent. 

"I  understand,  my  dear  son,  that  you  would  abandon  your 
leisure  hours  only  with  the  greatest  reluctance,"  continued  Doder- 
lein  with  concealed  sarcasm,  "but  after  all,  who  can  live  precisely 
as  he  would  like  to  live?  Who  can  follow  his  own  inclinations 
entirely?  The  everyday  feature  of  human  existence  is  powerful. 
Icarus  must  fall  to  the  earth.  With  your  wife  anticipating  a 
happy  event,  you  cannot,  of  course,  hesitate  in  the  face  of  such 
an  offer." 

Daniel  cast  an  angry  look  at  Dorothea. 

"I  will  think  it  over,"  said  Daniel,  got  up,  and  left  the  room. 

"It  is  unpleasant  for  him,"  complained  Dorothea;  "he  values  his 
leisure  above  everything  else  in  the  world.  But  I  will  do  all  in 
my  power  to  bring  him  around,  Father.  And  you  keep  at  him. 
He  will  resist  and  object.  I  know  him." 

Thus  it  was  brought  to  light  that  Daniel  was  no  longer  a  mys- 
terious and  unfathomable  individual  in  her  estimation.  She  had 
found  him  out;  she  had  divined  him,  in  her  way  to  be  sure.  He 
was  much  simpler  than  she  had  imagined,  and  at  times  she  was 
really  a  bit  angry  at  him  for  not  arousing  her  curiosity  more  than 
he  did.  What  she  had  fancied  as  highly  interesting,  thrilling, 
intoxicating,  had  proved  to  be  quite  simple  and  ordinary.  The 
charm  was  gone,  never  to  return.  Her  sole  diversion  lay  in  her 
attempts  to  get  complete  control  over  him  through  the  skilful 
manipulation  of  her  senses  and  her  priceless  youth. 

Daniel  felt  that  she  was  disappointed;  he  had  been  afraid  of  this 
all  along.  His  anxiety  increased  with  time,  for  it  was  evident 
that  everything  he  said  or  did  disappointed  her.  His  anxiety 
caused  him  to  be  indulgent,  where  he  had  formerly  been  unbend- 
ing. The  difference  in  their  ages  made  him  patient  and  tractable. 
He  feared  he  could  not  show  her  the  love  that  she  in  her  fresh- 
ness and  natural,  unconsumed  robustness  desired.  On  this  account 
he  denied  himself  many  things  which  he  formerly  could  not  have 


414  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

got  along  without,  and  put  up  with  many  things  that  would  have 
been   intolerable  to  him  as  a  younger  man. 

It  needed  only  a  single  hour  at  night  to  make  him  promise  to 
accept  the  position  old  Herold  was  leaving.  He,  as  parsimonious 
with  words  as  in  the  expression  of  feelings,  succumbed  to  her  cat- 
like cuddling.  He  capitulated  in  the  face  of  her  unpitying  ridi- 
cule, and  surrendered  all  to  the  prurient  agility  of  a  young  body. 
Dark  powers  there  are  that  set  up  dependencies  between  man  and 
woman.  When  they  rule,  things  do  not  work  out  in  accordance 
with  set  calculation  or  inborn  character.  It  takes  but  a  single  hour 
of  the  night  to  bend  the  most  sacred  truth,  of  life  into  a  lie. 


In  the  course  of  time  Daniel  had  to  provide  for  an  increase  in 
his  annual  salary.  Dorothea  had  made  a  great  many  innovations 
that  cost  money.  She  had  bought  a  dressing  table,  a  number  of 
cabinets,  and  a  bath  tub.  The  lamps,  dishes,  bed  covers,  and 
curtains  she  found  old-fashioned,  and  simply  went  out  and  bought 
new  ones. 

Nothing  gave  her  greater  pleasure  than  to  go  shopping.  Then 
the  bills  came  in,  and  Daniel  shook  his  head.  He  begged  her  to 
be  more  saving,  but  she  would  fall  on  his  neck,  and  beseech  and 
beseech  until  he  acceded  to  every  single  one  of  her  wishes. 

She  rarely  came  home  with  empty  hands.  It  may  have  been 
only  little  things  that  she  bought,  a  manikin  of  porcelain  with  a 
tile  hat  and  an  umbrella,  or  a  pagoda  with  a  wag-head,  or  even 
merely  a  mouse-trap — but  they  all  cost  money. 

Philippina  would  be  called  in;  Philippina  was  to  admire  the 
purchases.  And  she  would  say  with  apparent  delight:  "Now  ain't 
that  sweet!"  Or,  "Now  that's  fine;  jwe  needed  a  mouse-trap  so 
bad!  There  was  a  mouse  on  the  clothes  rack  just  yesterday,  cross 
my  heart,  Daniel." 

As  to  hats,  dresses,  stockings,  shoes,  laces,  and  blouses — when  it 
came  to  these  Dorothea  was  a  stranger  to  such  concepts  as  measure 
or  modesty.  She  wanted  to  compete  with  the  wives  of  the  rich 
people  whose  parties  she  attended,  and  next  to  whom  she  sat  in 
the  pastry  shop  or  at  the  theatre. 

She  was  given  free  tickets  to  the  theatre  and  the  concerts.  But 
once  when  she  had  told  Daniel  that  the  director  had  sent  her  a 
ticket,  he  learned  from  Philippina  that  she  had  bought  the  ticket 
and  paid  for  it  with  her  own  money.  He  did  not  call  her  to 


DOROTHEA  415 

account,  but  he  could  not  get  the  thought  out  of  his  mind  that  she 
had  believed  she  had  deceived  him. 

He  did  not  accompany  her  on  her  pleasure  jaunts;  he  wanted  to 
work  and  not  double  even  the  smallest  expenditure  by  going  with 
her.  Dorothea  had  become  accustomed  to  this.  She  looked  upon 
his  apathy  toward  the  theatre  and  his  dislike  of  social  distractions 
as  a  caprice,  a  crotchet  on  his  part.  She  never  considered  what 
he  had  gone  through  in  the  way  of  theatricals  and  concerts;  she 
had  completely  forgotten  what  he  had  confessed  to  her  in  a  de- 
cisive hour. 

When  she  came  home  late  in  the  evening  with  burning  cheeks 
and  glowing  eyes,  Daniel  did  not  have  the  courage  to  give  her 
the  advice  he  felt  she  so  sorely  needed.  "Why  snatch  her  from 
her  heaven?"  he  thought.  "She  will  become  demure  and  quiet  in 
time;  her  wild  lust  for  pleasure  will  fade  and  disappear." 

He  was  afraid  of  her  pouting  mien,  her  tears,  her  perplexed 
looks,  her  defiant  running  about.  But  he  lacked  the  words  to 
express  himself.  He  knew  how  ineffectual  warning  and  reproach 
might  be  and  were.  Empty  talking  back  and  forth  he  could  not 
stand,  while  if  he  made  a  really  human  remark  it  found  no  re- 
sponse. She  did  not  appreciate  what  he  said;  she  misunderstood, 
misinterpreted  everything.  She  laughed,  shrugged  her  shoulders, 
pouted,  called  him  an  old  grouch,  or  cooed  like  a  dove.  She  did 
not  look  at  him  with  real  eyes;  there  was  no  flow  of  soul  in  what 
she  did. 

Gloom  filled  his  heart. 

The  waste  in  the  household  affairs  became  worse  and  worse  from 
week  to  week.  Daniel  would  have  felt  like  a  corner  grocer  if  he 
had  never  let  her  know  how  much  he  had  saved,  or  had  given  her 
less  than  she  asked  for.  And  so  his  money  was  soon  all  gone. 
Dorothea  troubled  herself  very  little  about  the  economic  side  of 
their  married  life.  She  told  Philippina  what  to  do,  and  fell  into 
a  rage  if  her  orders  were  not  promptly  obeyed. 

"It's  too  dull  for  her  here.  My  God,  such  a  young  woman!" 
said  Philippina  to  Daniel  with  simulated  regret.  "She  wants  to 
have  a  good  time;  she  wants  to  enjoy  her  life.  And  you  can't 
blame  her." 

Philippina  was  the  mistress  of  the  house.  She  went  to  the 
market,  paid  the  bills,  superintended  the  cook  and  the  washwoman, 
and  rejoiced  with  exceeding  great  and  fiendish  joy  when  she  saw 
how  rapidly  everything  was  goinjz  downhill,  downhill  irresistibly 
and  as  sure  a*  vnur  life. 


4i6  THE  GOOSE  MAN 


As  the  time  approached  for  Dorothea's  confinement  she  very 
rarely  left  the  house.  She  would  lie  in  bed  until  about  eleven 
o'clock,  when  she  would  get  up,  dress,  comb  her  hair,  go  through 
her  wardrobe,  and  write  letters. 

She  carried  on  a  most  elaborate  correspondence;  those  who 
received  her  letters  praised  her  amusing  style. 

After  luncheon  she  would  go  back  to  bed;  and  late  in  the  after- 
noon her  visitors  came  in,  not  merely  women  but  all  sorts  of  young 
men.  It  often  happened  that  Daniel  did  not  even  know  the  names 
of  the  people.  He  would  withdraw  to  the  room  Eleanore  had 
formerly  occupied,  and  from  which  he  could  hear  laughter  and 
loud  talk  resounding  through  the  hall. 

By  evening  Dorothea  was  tired.  She  would  sit  in  the  rocking 
chair  and  read  the  newspaper,  or  the  Wiener  Mode,  generally  not 
in  the  best  of  humour. 

Daniel  confidently  believed  that  all  this  would  change  for  the 
better  as  soon  as  the  child  had  been  born;  he  believed  that  the 
feeling  of  a  mother  and  the  duties  of  a  mother  would  have  a 
broadening  and  subduing  effect  on  her. 

Late  in  the  autumn  Dorothea  gave  birth  to  a  boy,  who  was 
baptised  Gottfried.  She  could  not  do  enough  by  way  of  showing 
her  affection  for  the  child;  her  transports  were  expressed  in  the 
most  childish  terms;  her  display  of  tenderness  was  almost  ex- 
cessive. 

For  six  days  she  nursed  the  child  herself.  Then  the  novelty 
wore  off,  friends  told  her  it  would  ruin  her  shape  to  keep  it  up, 
and  she  quit.  "It  makes  you  stout,"  she  said  to  Philippina,  "and 
cow's  milk  is  just  as  good,  if  not  better." 

Philippina  opened  her  mouth  and  eyes  as  wide  as  she  could  when 
she  saw  Dorothea  standing  before  the  mirror,  stripped  to  the  hips, 
studying  the  symmetry  of  her  body  with  a  seriousness  that  no  one 
had  ever  noticed  in  her  before. 

Dorothea  became  coldly  indifferent  toward  her  child;  it  seemed 
that  she  had  entirely  forgotten  that  she  was  a  mother.  The  baby 
slept  in  the  room  with  Philippina  and  Agnes,  both  of  whom  cared 
for  it.  Its  mother  was  otherwise  engaged. 

As  if  to  make  up  for  lost  time  and  to  indemnify  herself  for  the 
suffering  and  general  inconvenience  to  which  she  had  been  put  in 
the  last  few  months,  Dorothea  rushed  with  mad  greediness  into 
new  pleasure*  and  strange  diversions.  Soon  however  she  found 


DOROTHEA  41? 

herself  embarrassed  from  a  lack  of  funds.  Daniel  told  her,  kindly 
but  firmly,  that  the  salaries  he  was  drawing  as  organist  and  teacher 
were  just  barely  enough  to  keep  the  house  going,  and  that  he  was 
curtailing  his  own  personal  needs  as  much  as  possible  so  that  there 
would  be  no  cause  to  discontinue  or  diminish  the  home  comforts 
they  had  latterly  been  enjoying.  "We  are  not  peasants,"  he  said, 
"and  that  we  are  not  living  from  the  mercy  of  chance  is  a  flaw 
in  me  rather  than  in  my  favour." 

"You  old  pinch-penny!"  said  Dorothea.  Ugly  wrinkles  ap- 
peared on  her  brow.  "If  you  had  not  made  me  disgusted  with  my 
art,  I  might  have  been  able  to  make  a  little  money  too,"  she  added. 

He  looked  down  at  the  floor  in  complete  silence.  She  how- 
ever began  thinking  about  ways  and  means  of  getting  her  hands  on 
money.  "Uncle  Carovius  might  help  me,"  she  thought.  She  took 
to  visiting  her  father  more  frequently,  and  every  time  she  came 
she  would  stand  out  in  the  hall  for  a  while  hoping  to  see  Herr 
Carovius.  One  day  he  appeared.  She  wanted  to  speak  to  him, 
smile  at  him,  win  him  over.  But  one  look  from  that  face,  filled 
with  petrified  and  ineradicable  rage,  showed  her  that  any  attempt 
to  approach  the  old  man  and  get  him  in  a  friendly  frame  of  mind 
would  be  fruitless. 

On  the  way  home  she  chanced  to  meet  the  actor  Edmund  Hahn. 
She  had  not  seen  him  since  she  had  been  married.  The  actor 
seemed  tremendously  pleased  to  see  her.  They  walked  along  to- 
gether, engaged  in  a  zealous  conversation,  talking  at  first  loudly 
and  then  gently. 


The  day  Dorothea  got  married,  Herr  Carovius  had  gone  to  his 
lawyer  to  have  the  will  he  had  drawn  up  the  night  before  attested 
to.  He  had  bequeathed  his  entire  fortune,  including  his  home 
and  the  furniture,  to  an  institution  to  be  erected  after  his  death  for 
the  benefit  of  orphans  of  noble  birth.  Baron  Eberhard  von 
Auffenbcrg  had  been  named  as  first  director  of  the  institution  and 
sole  executor  of  his  will. 

Herr  Carovius  refused  to  have  anything  more  to  do  with  music. 
He  had  a  leather  cover  made  for  his  long,  narrow  grand  piano, 
and  enshrouded  in  this,  the  instrument  resembled  a  stuffed  animal. 
He  looked  back  on  his  passion  for  music  as  one  of  the  aberrations 
of  his  youth,  though  he  realised  that  he  was  chastising  his  spirit 
till  it  hurt  when  he  took  this  attitude. 


418  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

The  method  he  employed  to  keep  from  having  nothing  to  do  was 
characteristic  of  the  man:  he  went  through  all  the  books  of  his 
library  looking  for  typographical  errors.  He  spent  hours  every 
day  at  this  work;  he  read  the  scientific  treatises  and  the  volumes  of 
pure  literature  with  his  attention  fixed  on  individual  letters.  When, 
after  infinite  search,  he  discovered  a  word  that  had  been  mis- 
spelled, or  a  grammatical  slip,  he  felt  like  a  fisherman  who,  after 
waiting  long  and  patiently,  finally  sees  a  fish  dangling  on  the  hroh 

Otherwise  he  was  thoroughly  unhappy.  The  beautiful  evenness 
of  his  hair  on  the  back  of  his  neck  had  been  transformed  into  a 
shaggy  wilderness.  He  could  be  seen  going  along  the  street  in  a 
suit  of  clothes  that  was  peppered  with  spots,  while  his  Calabrian 
hat  resembled  a  war  tent  that  has  gone  through  a  number  of  major 
offensives. 

He  had  again  taken  to  frequenting  the  Paradise  Cafe  two  or 
three  times  a  week,  not  exactly  to  surrender  himself  to  mournful 
memories,  but  because  the  coffee  there  cost  twenty  pfennigs, 
whereas  the  more  modern  cafes  were  charging  twenty-five.  His 
dinner  consisted  of  a  pot  of  coffee  and  a  few  rolls. 

It  came  about  that  old  Jordan  likewise  began  to  frequent  the 
Paradise.  For  a  long  while  the  two  men  would  go  there,  sit  down 
at  their  chosen  tables,  and  study  each  other  at  a  distance.  Finally 
the  day  came  when  they  sat  down  together;  then  it  became  a 
custom  for  them  to  take  their  places  at  the  same  table,  one  back 
in  the  corner  by  the  stove,  where  a  quiet  comradeship  developed 
between  them.  It  was  rare  that  their  conversation  went  beyond 
external  platitudes. 

Herr  Carovius  acted  as  though  he  were  merely  enduring  old 
Jordan.  But  he  never  really  became  absorbed  in  his  newspaper 
until  the  old  man  had  come  and  sat  down  at  the  table  with  him, 
greeting  him  with  marked  respect  as  he  did  so.  Jordan,  however, 
did  not  conceal  his  delight  when,  on  entering  the  cafe  and  casting 
his  eyes  around  the  room,  they  at  last  fell  on  Herr  Carovius. 
While  he  sipped  his  coffee,  he  never  took  them  off  the  wicked 
face  of  his  vis-a-vis. 


Philippina  became  Dorothea's  confidential  friend. 

At  first  it  was  nothing  more  than  Dorothea's  desire  to  gossip  that 
drew  her  to  Philippina.  Later  she  fell  into  the  habit  of  telling 
her  everything  she  knew.  She  felt  no  need  of  keeping  any  secret 


DOROTHEA  419 

from  Philippina,  the  inexplicable.  The  calm  attentiveness  with 
which  Philippina  listened  to  her  flattered  her,  and  left  her  without 
a  vestige  of  suspicion.  She  felt  that  Philippina  was  too  stupid 
and  uncultivated  to  view  her  activities  in  perspective  or  pass  judg- 
ment on  them. 

She  liked  to  conjure  up  seductive  pictures  before  the  old  maid's 
imagination;  for  she  loved  to  hear  Philippina  abuse  the  male  of  the 
species.  If  some  bold  plan  were  maturing  in  her  mind,  she  would 
tell  Philippina  about  it  just  as  if  it  had  already  been  executed. 
In  this  way  she  tested  the  possibility  of  really  carrying  out  her 
designs,  and  procured  for  herself  a  foretaste  of  what  was  to  follow. 

It  was  chiefly  Philippina's  utter  ugliness  that  made  her  trust  her. 
Such  a  homely  creature  was  in  her  eyes  not  a  woman,  hardly  a 
human  being  of  either  sex;  and  with  her  she  felt  she  could  talk 
just  as  much  as  she  pleased,  and  say  anything  that  came  into  her 
head.  And  since  Philippina  never  spoke  of  Daniel  in  any  but  a 
derogatory  and  spiteful  tone,  Dorothea  felt  perfectly  safe  on  that 
ground. 

She  would  come  into  the  kitchen,  and  sit  down  on  a  bench  and 
talk:  about  a  silk  dress  she  had  seen  for  sale;  about  the  fine  com- 
pliments Court  Councillor  Finkeldey  had  paid  her;  about  the  love 
affairs  of  these  and  the  divorce  proceedings  of  those;  about  Frau 
Feistelmann's  pearls,  remarking  that  she  would  give  ten  years  of 
her  life  if  she  also  had  such  pearls.  In  fact,  the  word  she  used 
most  frequently  was  "also."  She  trembled  and  shook  from  head  to 
foot  with  desires  and  wishes,  low-minded  unrest  and  lusts  that 
flourish  in  the  dark. 

Often  she  would  tell  stories  of  her  life  in  Munich.  She  told 
how  she  once  spent  a  night  with  an  artist  in  his  studio,  just  for 
fun;  and  how  on  another  occasion  she  had  gone  with  an  officer  to 
the  barracks  at  night  simply  on  a  wager.  She  told  of  all  the 
fine-looking  men  who  ran  after  her,  and  how  she  dropped  them 
whenever  she  felt  like  it.  She  said  she  would  let  them  kiss  her 
sometimes,  but  that  was  all;  or  she  would  walk  arm  in  arm  with 
them  through  the  forest,  but  that  was  all.  She  commented  on  the 
fact  that  in  Munich  you  had  to  keep  an  eye  out  for  the  police  and 
observe  their  hours,  otherwise  there  might  be  trouble.  For  exam- 
ple, a  swarthy  Italian  kept  following  her  once — he  was  a  regular 
Conte — and  she  couldn't  make  the  man  go  on  about  his  business,  and 
you  know  he  rushed  into  her  room  and  held  a  revolver  before  her 
face,  and  she  screamed,  of  course  she  did,  until  the  whole  house 
was  awake,  and  there  was  an  awful  excitement. 


420  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

Whin  Daniel  endeavoured  to  put  a  stop  to  her  wastefulness,  she 
went  to  Philippina  and  complained.  Philippina  encouraged  her. 
"Don't  you  let  him  get  away  with  anything,"  said  she,  "let  him 
feel  that  a  woman  with  your  beauty  didn't  have  to  marry  a  skin- 
flint." 

When  she  began  to  go  with  Edmund  Hahn,  she  told  Philippina 
all  about  it.  "You  ought  to  see  him,  Philippina,"  she  whispered  in 
a  mysterious  way.  "He  is  a  regular  Don  Juan ;  he  can  turn  the  head 
of  any  woman."  She  said  he  had  been  madly  in  love  with  her  for 
two  years,  and  now  he  was  going  to  gamble  for  her;  but  in  a  very 
aristocratic  and  exclusive  club,  to  which  none  but  the  nicest  people 
belonged.  "If  I  win,  Philippina,  I  am  going  to  make  you  a  lovely 
present,"  she  said. 

From  then  on  her  conversation  became  rather  tangled  and  inco- 
herent. She  was  out  a  great  deal,  and  when  she  returned  she  was 
always  in  a  rather  uncertain  condition.  She  had  Philippina  put 
up  her  hair,  and  every  word  she  spoke  during  the  operation  was 
a  lie.  One  time  she  confessed  that  she  had  not  been  in  the  theatre, 
as  Daniel  had  supposed,  but  at  the  house  of  a  certain  Frau  Baumler, 
a  good  friend  of  Edmund  Hahn.  Thev  had  been  gambling:  she 
had  won  sixty  marks.  She  looked  at  trw.  door  as  if  in  fear,  took  out 
her  purse,  and  showed  Philippina  three  gold  pieces. 

Philippina  had  to  swear  that  she  would  not  give  Dorothea  away. 
A  few  days  later  Dorothea  got  into  another  party  and  got  out  of  it 
successfully,  and  Philippina  had  to  renew  her  oath.  The  old  maid 
could  take  an  oath  with  an  ease  and  glibness  such  as  she  might 
have  displayed  in  saying  good  morning.  In  the  bottom  of  her  heart 
she  never  failed  to  grant  herself  absolution  for  the  perjury  she  was 
committing.  For  the  time  being  she  wished  to  collect,  take  notes, 
follow  the  game  wherever  it  went.  Moreover,  it  tickled  and 
satisfied  her  senses  to  think  about  relations  and  situations  which  she 
knew  full  well  she  could  never  herself  experience. 

Dorothea  became  more  and  more  ensnared.  Her  eyes  looked 
like  will-o'-the-wisps,  her  laugh  was  jerky  and  convulsive.  She 
never  had  time,  either  for  her  husband  or  her  child.  She  would 
receive  letters  occasionally  that  she  would  read  with  greedy  haste 
and  then  tear  into  shreds.  Philippina  came  into  her  room  once 
quite  suddenly;  Dorothea,  terrified,  hid  a  photograph  she  had  been 
holding  in  her  hand.  When  Philippina  became  indignant  at  the 
secrecy  of  her  action,  she  said  with  an  air  of  inoffensive  superiority: 
"You  would  not  understand  it,  Philippina.  That  is  something  I 
cannot  discuss  with  any  one." 


DOROTHEA  421 

But  Philippina's  vexation  worried  her:  she  showed  her  the  photo- 
graph. It  was  the  picture  of  a  young  man  with  a  cold,  crusty  face. 
Dorothea  said  it  was  an  American  whom  she  had  met  at  Frau 
Baumler's.  He  was  said  to  be  very  rich  and  alone. 

Every  evening  Philippina  wanted  to  know  something  about  the 
American.  "Tell  me  about  the  American,"  she  would  say. 

One  evening,  quite  late,  Dorothea  came  into  Philippina's  room 
with  nothing  on  but  her  night-gown.  Agnes  and  little  Gottfried 
were  asleep.  "The  American  has  ;a  box  at  the  theatre  to-morrow 
erening.  If  you  call  for  me  you  can  see  him,"  she  whispered. 

"I  am  bursting  with  curiosity,"  replied  Philippina. 

For  a  while  Dorothea  sat  in  perfect  silence,  and  then  exclaimed: 
"If  I  only  had  money,  Philippin',  if  I  only  had  money!" 

"I  thought  the  American  had  piles  of  it,"  replied  Philippina. 

"Of  course  he  has  money,  lots  of  it,"  said  Dorothea,  and  her 
eyes  flashed,  "but—" 

"But?      What  do  you  mean?" 

"Do  you  think  men  do  things  without  being  compensated?" 

"Oh,  that's  it,"  said  Philippina  reflectively,  "that's  it."  She 
crouched  on  a  hassock  at  Dorothea's  feet.  "How  pretty  you  are, 
how  sweet,"  she  said  in  her  bass  voice:  "God,  what  pretty  little 
feet  you  have!  And  what  smooth  white  skin!  Marble's  got 
nothing  on  you."  And  with  the  carnal  concupiscence  of  a  faun  in 
woman's  form  she  took  Dorothea's  leg  in  her  hand  and  stroked  the 
skin  as  far  as  the  knee. 

Dorothea  shuddered.  As  she  looked  down  at  the  cowering 
Philippina,  she  noticed  that  there  was  a  button  missing  on  her 
blouse.  Through  the  opening,  just  between  her  breasts,  she  saw 
something  brown.  "What  is  that  on  your  body  there?"  asked 
Dorothea. 

Philippina  blushed.  "Nothing  for  you,"  shelreplied  in  a  rough 
tone,  and  held  her  hand  over  the  opening  in  her  blouse. 

"Tell  me,  Philippina,  tell  me,"  begged  Dorothea,  who  could  not 
stand  the  thought  of  any  one  keeping  a  secret  from  her:  "Possibly 
it  is  your  dowry.  Possibly  you  have  made  a  savings  bank  out  of 
your  bosom?"  She  laughed  lustily. 

Philippina  got  up:  "Yes,  it  is  my  money,"  she  confessed  with 
reluctance,  and  looked  at  Dorothea  hostilcly. 

"It  must  be  a  whole  lot.  Look  out,  or  some  one  will  steal  it 
from  you.  You  will  have  to  sleep  on  your  stomach." 

Daniel  came  down  from  his  study,  and  heard  Dorothea  laugh- 
ing. Grief  was  gnawing  at  his  heart;  he  passed  hastily  by  the  door. 


422  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

XI 

One  evening,  as  Philippina  came  into  the  hall  from  the  street, 
she  saw  a  man  coming  up  to  her  in  the  dark;  he  called  her  by 
name.  She  thought  she  recognised  his  voice,  and  on  looking  at  him 
more  closely  saw  that  it  was  her  father. 

She  had  not  spoken  to  him  for  ten  years.  She  had  seen  him 
from  time  to  time  at  a  distance,  but  she  had  always  made  it  a  point 
to  be  going  in  another  direction  as  soon  as  she  saw  him;  she 
avoided  him,  absolutely. 

"What's  the  news?"  she  asked  in  a  friendly  tone. 

Jason  Philip  cleared  his  throat,  and  tried  to  get  out  of  the  light 
in  the  hall  and  back  into  the  shadow:  he  wished  to  conceal  his 
shabby  clothes  from  his  daughter. 

"Now,  listen,"  he  began  with  affected  naturalness,  "you  might 
inquire  about  your  parents  once  in  a  while.  The  few  steps  over  to 
our  house  wouldn't  make  you  break  your  legs.  Honour  thy  father 
and  thy  mother,  you  know.  Your  mother  deserves  any  kindness  you 
can  show  her.  As  for  me,  well,  I  have  dressed  you  down  at  times, 
but  only  when  you  needed  it.  You  were  a  mischievous  monkey, 
and  you  know  it." 

He  laughed;  but  there  was  the  fire  of  fear  in  his  eyes.  Philip- 
pina was  the  embodiment  of  silence. 

"As  I  was  saying,"  Jason  Philip  continued  hastily,  as  'if  to 
prevent  any  inimical  memories  of  his  daughter  from  coming  to  his 
mind,  "you  might  pay  a  little  attention  to  your  parents  once  in  a 
while:  Can't  you  lend  me  ten  marks?  I  have  got  to  meet  a  bill 
to-morrow  morning,  and  I  haven't  got  a  pfennig.  The  boys,  you 
know,  I  mean  your  brothers,  are  conducting  themselves  splendidly. 
They  give  me  something  the  first  of  each  month,  and  they  do  it 
regularly.  But  I  don't  like  to  go  to  them  about  this  piddling 
business  to-morrow.  I  thought  that  as  you  were  right  here  in  the 
neighbourhood,  I  could  come  over  and  see  you  about  it." 

Jason  Philip  was  lying.  His  sons  gave  him  no  help  whatsoever. 
Willibald  was  living  in  Breslau,  where  he  had  a  poorly  paid  position 
as  a  bookkeeper  and  was  just  barely  making  ends  meet.  Markus 
was  good  for  nothing,  and  head  over  heels  in  debt. 

Philippina  thought  the  matter  over  for  a  moment,  and  then  told 
her  father  to  wait.  She  went  upstairs.  Jason  Philip  waited lat  the 
door,  whistling  softly.  Many  years  had  passed  by  since  he  first 
attacked  the  civil  powers,  urged  on  by  a  rebellion  of  noble  thoughts 
in  his  soul.  Many  years  had  passed  by  since  he  had  made  his  peace 


DOROTHEA  423 

with  these  same  civil  powers.  Nevertheless,  he  continued  to  whistle 
the  "Marseillaise." 

Philippina  came  waddling  down  the  steps,  dragged  herself  over 
to  the  door,  and  gave  her  father  a  five-mark  piece.  "There,"  she 
bellowed,  "I  haven't  any  more  myself." 

But  Jason  Philip  was  satisfied  with  half  the  amount  he  had  asked 
for.  He  was  now  equipped  for  an  onslaught  on  the  nearest  cafe 
with  its  corned  beef,  sausages,  and  new  beer. 

From  this  time  on  he  came  around  to  the  house  on  ^Egydius 
Place  quite  frequently.  He  would  stand  in  the  hall,  look  around 
for  Philippina,  and  if  he  found  her,  beg  her  for  money.  The 
amounts  Philippina  gave  him  became  smaller  and  smaller.  Finally 
she  took  to  giving  him  ten  pfennigs  when  he  came. 

XII 

It  frequently  happened  that  Daniel  would  not  answer  when  any 
one  asked  him  a  question.  His  ear  lost  the  words,  his  eye  the 
pictures,  signs,  faces,  gestures.  He  was  in  his  own  way;  he  was 
a  torment  to  himself. 

Something  drew  him  there  and  then  here.  He  would  leave  the 
house,  and  then  be  taken  with  a  longing  to  return.  He  noticed 
that  people  were  laughing  at  him;  laughing  at  him  behind  his 
back.  He  read  mockery  in  the  eyes  of  his  pupils;  the  maids  in  the 
house  tittered  when  he  passed  by. 

What  did  they  know?  What  were  they  concealing?  Perhaps 
his  soul  could  have  told  what  they  knew  and  what  they  concealed; 
but  he  was  unwilling  to  drag  it  all  out  into  the  realm  of  known, 
nameable  things. 

As  if  an  invisible  slanderer  were  at  his  side,  unwilling  to  leave 
him,  leave  him  in  peace,  his  despair  increased.  "What  have  you 
done,  Daniel!"  a  voice  within  him  cried,  "what  have  you  done!" 
The  shades  of  the  sisters,  arm  in  arm,  arose  before  him. 

The  feeling  of  having  made  a  mistake,  a  mistake  that  could 
never  be  rectified,  burned  like  fire  within  him.  His  work,  so 
nearly  completed,  had  suddenly  died  away. 

For  the  sake  of  his  symphony,  he  forced  himself  into  a  quiet 
frame  of  mind  at  night,  made  room  for  faint-hearted  hopes,  and 
lulled  his  prescntient  soul  into  peace. 

The  thing  that  troubled  him  worst  of  all  was  the  way  Philippina 
looked  at  him. 

Since  the  birth  of  the  child  he  had  been  living  in  Eleanore's 


424  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

room.  Old  Jordan  was  consideration  itself:  he  went  around  in 
his  stocking  feet  so  as  not  to  disturb  him. 

One  night  Daniel  took  the  candle,  and  went  downstairs  to 
Dorothea's  room.  She  woke  up,  screamed,  looked  at  him  bewil- 
dered, recognised  him,  became  indignant,  and  then 'laughed  mock- 
ingly and  sensually. 

He  sat  down  on  the  side  of  her  bed,  and  took  her  right  hand 
between  his  two.  But  he  had  a  disagreeable  sensation  on  feeling 
her  hand  in  his,  and  looked  at  her  fingers.  They  were  not 
finely  formed:  they  were  thicker  at  the  ends  than  in  the  middle; 
they  could  not  remain  quiet;  they  twitched  constantly. 

"This  can't  keep  up,  Dorothea,"  he  said  in  a  kindly  tone,  "you 
are  ruining  your  own  life  and  mine  too.  Why  do  you  have  all 
these  people  around  you?  Is  the  pleasure  you  derive  from  asso- 
ciating with  them  so  great  that  it  benumbs  your  conscience?  I 
have  no  idea  what  you  are  doing.  Tell  me  about  it.  The  house- 
hold affairs  are  in  a  wretched  condition;  everything  is  in  dis- 
order. And  that  cigar  smoke  out  in  the  living  room!  I  opened 
a  window.  And  your  child!  It  has  no  mother.  Look  at  its  little 
face,  and  see  how  pale  and  sickly  it  looks!" 

"Well,  I  can't  help  it;  Philippina  puts  poppy  In  the  milk  so 
that  it  will  sleep  longer."  Dorothea  answered,  after  the  fashion 
of  guilty  women:  of  the  various  reproaches  Daniel  had  cast  at  her, 
she  seized  upon  the  one  of  which  she  felt  the  least  guilty.  But 
after  this,  Daniel  had  no  more  to  say. 

"I  am  so  tired  and  sleepy,"  said  Dorothea,  and  again  blinked  at 
him  out  of  one  corner  of  her  eye  with  that  mocking,  sensual  look. 
As  he  showed  no  inclination  to  leave,  she  yawned,  and  continued 
in  an  angry  tone:  "Why  do  you  wake  a  person  up  in  the  middle  of 
the  night,  if  all  you  want  is  to  scold  them?  Get  out  of  here,  you 
loathsome  thing!" 

She  turned  her  back  on  him,  and  rested  her  head  on  her  hand. 
Opposite  her  bed  was  a  mirror  in  a  gold  frame.  She  saw  herself 
in  it;  she  was  pleased  with  herself  lying  there  in  that  offended 
mood,  and  she  smiled. 

Daniel,  who  had  been  so  cruel  to  noble  women  now  become 
shades,  saw  how  she  smiled  at  herself,  infatuated  with  herself:  he 
took  pity  on  such  child-like  vanity. 

"There  is  a  Chinese  fairy  tale  about  a  Princess,"  he  said,  and 
bent  down  over  Dorothea,  "who  received  from  her  mother  as  a 
wedding  present  a  set  of  jewel  boxes.  There  was  a  costly  present 
in  each  box,  but  the  last,  smallest,  innermost  one  was  locked,  and 


DOROTHEA  425 

the  Princess  had  to  promise  that  she  would  never  open  it.  She 
kept  her  promise  for  a  while,  but  curiosity  at  last  got  the  better 
of  her,  she  forgot  her  vow,  and  opened  the  last  little  box  by  force. 
There  was  a  mirror  in  it;  and  when  she  looked  into  it  and  saw  how 
beautiful  she  was,  she  began  to  abuse  her  husband.  She  tortured 
him  so  that  he  killed  her  one  day." 

Dorothea  looked  at  him  terrified.  Then  she  laughed  and  said: 
"What  a  stupid  story!  Such  a  tale  of  horror!"  She  laid  her 
cheek  on  the  pillow,  and  again  looked  in  the  mirror. 

The  following  morning  Daniel  received  an  anonymous  lett-r. 
It  read  as  follows:  "You  will  be  guarding  your  own  honour  if  you 
keep  a  sharp  lookout  on  your  wife.  A  Well-wisher." 

A  cold  fever  came  over  him.  For  a  few  days  he  dragged  his 
body  from  room  to  room  as  if  poisoned.  He  avoided  every  one  in 
the  house.  One  night  he  again  felt  a  desire  to  go  down  to  Doro- 
thea. When  he  reached  the  door  to  her  room,  he  found  it  bolted. 
He  knocked,  but  received  no  answer.  He  knocked  again,  this  time 
more  vigorously.  He  heard  her  turn  her  head  on  the  pillow.  "Let 
me  sleep!"  cried  Dorothea  angrily. 

"Open  the  door,  Dorothea,"  he  begged. 

"No,  I  will  not;  I  want  to  sleep."  These  were  the  words  that 
reached  his  ear  from  behind  the  bolted  door. 

He  pressed  three  or  four  times  on  the  latch,  implored  her 
three  or  four  times  to  let  him  come  in,  but  received  no  answer. 
He  did  not  wish  to  make  any  more  noise,  looked  straight  ahead 
as  if  into  a  dark  hole,  and  then  turned  and  went  back  to  his  room 
in  the  attic. 


Friedrich  Benda  was  again  in  Europe.  All  the  newspapers  con- 
tained accounts  of  the  discoveries  made  on  the  expedition.  Last 
autumn  Arab  dealers  in  ivory  had  found  him  in  the  land  of  Niam- 
Niam,  taken  an  interest  in  him,  and  finally  brought  him,  then 
seemingly  in  the  throes  of  imminent  death,  back  to  the  Nile.  In 
England  he  was  celebrated  as  a  hero  and  a  bold  pioneer;  the  Royal 
Geographical  Society  had  made  him  an  honorary  member;  and  the 
incidents  of  his  journey  were  the  talk  of  the  day. 

Toward  the  close  of  April  he  came  to  Nuremberg  to  visit  his 
mother.  The  blind  old  woman  had  been  carefully  and  cautiously 
prepared  for  his  coming.  She  nevertheless  came  very  nc.ir  dying 
with  joy;  her  life 'was  in  grave  danger  for  a  while. 


426  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

Benda  had  not  wished  to  stay  more  than  a  week:  his  business 
and  hi*  work  called  him  back  to  London;  he  had  lectures  to  deliver, 
and  he  had  to  see  a  book  through  the  press,  a  book  in  which  he  had 
given  a  description  of  the  years  spent  in  Africa. 

At  the  urgent  request  of  his  mother  he  had  decided  to  stay 
longer.  Moreover,  during  the  first  days  of  his  visit  to  Nuremberg, 
he  suffered  from  a  severe  attack  of  a  fever  he  had  brought  with  him 
from  the  tropics,  and  this  forced  him  to  remain  in  bed.  The 
newb  of  his  presence  in  the  city  finally  became  generally  known, 
and  he  was  annoyed  by  the  curiosity  of  many  people  who  had 
formerly  never  concerned  themselves  about  him  in  the  slight- 
est 

He  wac  eager  to  see  Daniel;  every  hour  of  delay  in  meeting  his 
old  friend  was  an  hour  of  reproach.  But  his  mother  insisted  that 
he  stay  with  her;  he  had  to  sit  near  her  and  tell  of  his  experiences 
in  Africa. 

When  he  heard  of  the  outer  events  in  Daniel's  life  he  was  filled 
with  terror.  The  fact  that  made  the  profoundest  impression  on 
him  was  Daniel's  marriage  to  Dorothea  Doderlein.  People  told 
him  a  great  many  things  about  their  life  and  how  they  were  getting 
along,  and  with  each  passing  day  he  felt  that  it  would  be  more 
difficult  to  go  to  Daniel.  One  evening  he  got  his  courage  together 
and  decided  to  go.  He  got  as  far  as  /Egydius  Place,  when  he  was 
seized  with  such  a  feeling  of  sadness  and  discomfort  at  the  thought 
of  all  the  changes  that  time  and  fate  had  made  that  he  turned  back. 
He  felt  as  if  he  might  be  deceived  by  a  picture  which  would  per- 
haps still  show  the  features  of  Daniel  as  he  looked  in  former  years, 
but  that  he  would  be  so  changed  inwardly  that  words  would  be 
unable  to  bring  the  two  together. 

He  longed  to  talk  with  some  one  who  loved  Daniel  and  who  had 
followed  his  career  with  pure  motives.  He  had  to  think  for  a  long 
while:  where  was  there  such  a  person?  He  thought  of  old  Herold 
and  went  to  him.  He  directed  the  conversation  without  digression 
to  a  point  that  was  of  prime  importance  to  him.  And  in  order  to 
put  the  old  man  in  as  confidential  a  frame  of  mind  as  possible,  he 
reminded  him  of  a  night  when  the  three  of  them,  Daniel,  Herold, 
and  Benda,  had  sat  in  the  Mohren  Cellar  drinking  wine  and  dis- 
cussing things  in  general,  important  and  unimportant,  that  have  a 
direct  bearing  on  life. 

The  old  man  nodded;  he  recalled  the  evening.  He  spoke  of 
Daniel's  genius  with  a  modesty  and  a  deference  that  made  Benda's 
heart  swell.  He  raised  his  finger,  and  said  with  a  fine  fire  in  his 


DOROTHEA  427 

eye:  "I'll  stand  good  for  him.  I  prophesy  on  the  word  of  the 
Bible:  A  star  will  rise  from  Jacob." 

Then  he  spoke  of  Eleanore;  he  was  passionately  fond  of  her. 
He  told  how  she  had  brought  him  the  quartette,  and  how  she  had 
glowed  with  inspiration  and  the  desire  to  help.  He  also  had  a  good 
deal  to  say  about  Gertrude,  especially  with  regard  to  her  mental 
breakdown  and  her  death. 

Benda  left  the  old  man  at  once  quiet  and  disquieted.  He 
walked  along  the  street  for  a, long  while,  rapt  in  thought.  When 
he  looked  up  he  saw  that  he  was  standing  before  Daniel's  house. 
He  went  in. 


XIV 

Daniel  knew  that  Benda  had  returned:  Philippina  had  read  it 
in  the  newspaper  and  told  him  about  it.  Dorothea,  who  had 
learned  of  his  return  from  her  father,  had  also  spoken  to  him 
about  it.  He  had  also  heard  other  people  speak  of  it. 

The  first  time  he  heard  it  he  was  startled.  He  felt  he  would 
have  to  flee  to  his  friend  of  former  days.  Then  he  was  seized 
with  the  same  fear  that  had  come  over  Benda:  Is  our  relation  to  each 
other  the  same?  The  thought  of  meeting  Benda  filled  him  with  a 
sense  of  shame,  to  which  was  added  a  touch  of  bitterness  as  day 
after  day  passed  by  and  Benda  never  called  or  wrote.  "It  is  all 
over,"  he  thought,  "he  has  forgotten  me."  He  would  have  liked  to 
forget  too;  and  he  could  have  done  it,  for  his  mind  was  wandering, 
restless,  strayed. 

One  evening  as  he  crossed  the  square  he  noticed  that  the  win- 
dows of  his  house  were  all  brilliantly  lighted.  He  went  to  the 
kitchen,  where  he  found  Agnes  at  the  table  seeding  plums. 

"Who  is  here  again?"  he  asked.  One  could  hear  laughter,  loud 
and  boisterous,  in  the  living  room. 

Agnes,  scarcely  looking  up,  reeled  off  the  names:  Councillor 
Finkeldey,  Herr  von  Ginsterberg,  Herr  Samuelsky,  Herr  Hahn,  a 
strange  man  whose  name  she  did  not  know,  Frau  Feistelmann  and 
her  sister. 

Daniel  remained  silent  for  a  while.  Then  he  went  up  to 
Agnes,  put  his  hand  under  her  chin,  lifted  her  head,  and  mur- 
mured: "And  you?  And  you?" 

Agnes  frowned,  and  was  afraid  to  look  into  his  face.  Suddenly 
she  said:  "To-day  is  the  anniversary  of  mother's  death."  With 
that  she  looked  at  him  fixedly. 


428  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

"So?"  said  Daniel,  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  the  table,  and 
laid  his  head  in  his  hand.  Some  one  was  playing  the  piano  in  the 
living  room.  Since  Daniel  had  taken  the  grand  piano  up  to  his 
room,  Dorothea  had  rented  a  small  one.  The  rhythmical  move- 
ment of  dancing  couples  could  be  heard  quite  distinctly. 

"I'd  like  to  leave  this  place,"  said  Agnes,  as  she  threw  a  worm- 
eaten  plum  in  the  garbage  can.  "In  Beckschlager  Street  there  is  a 
seamstress  who  wants  to  teach  me  to  sew." 

"Why  don't  you  go?"  asked  Daniel.  "It  would  be  a  very  sensible 
thing  to  do.  But  what  will  Philippina  say  about  it?" 

"Oh,  she  doesn't  object,  provided  I  spend  my  evenings  and 
Sundays  with  her." 

The  front  door  bell  rang,  and  Agnes  went  out:  there  was  some 
one  to  see  Daniel.  He  hesitated,  started  toward  the  door,  shook 
and  stepped  back,  seized  with  trembling  hand  the  kitchen  lamp  in 
order  to  make  certain  that  he  was  not  mistaken,  for  it  was  dark, 
but  there  could  be  no  mistake.  It  was  Benda. 

They  looked  at  each  other  in  violent  agitation.  Benda  was  the 
first  to  reach  out  his  hand;  then  Daniel  reached  out  his.  Something 
seemed  to  snap  within  him.  He  became  dizzy;  his  tall,  stiff  body 
swung  back  and  forth.  Then  he  fell  into  the  arms  of  his  friend, 
whom  he  had  lived  without  for  seventeen  years. 

Benda  was  not  prepared  for  such  a  scene;  he  was  unable  to 
speak.  Then  Daniel  tore  himself  loose  from  the  embrace  of  his 
old  comrade,  pushed  the  dishevelled  hair  back  from  his  forehead, 
and  said  hastily:  "Come  upstairs  with  me;  no  one  will  disturb  us 
up  there." 

Daniel  lighted  the  lamp  in  his  room,  and  then  looked  around  to 
see  whether  old  Jordan  was  at  home.  Jordan's  room  was  dark. 
He  closed  the  door  and  took  a  seat  opposite  Benda.  He  was  breath- 
ing heavily. 

What  meaning  can  be  attached  to  the  preliminary  questions  and 
answers  that  invariably  accompany  such  a  meeting  after  such  a  long 
separation?  "How  are  you?  How  long  are  you  going  to  stay  in 
town?  You  still  have  the  same  old  habits  of  life?  Tell  me  about 
yourself."  What  do  such  questions  mean?  They  mean  virtually 
nothing.  The  protagonists  thereby  simply  remove  the  rubbish  from 
the  channels  which  have  been  choked  up  in  the  course  of  years,  and 
try  to  build  new  bridges  carrying  them  over  abysses  that  must  be 
crossed  it  the  conversation  is  to  be  connected  and  coherent. 

Benda    had    grown    somewhat    stout.      His    face    was    brownish 


DOROTHEA  429 

yellow,  about  the  colour  of  leather.  The  deep  wrinkles  around  his 
forehead  and  mouth  told  of  the  hardships  he  had  gone  through. 
His  eye  was  completely  changed:  it  had  the  strong,  vivacious,  and 
yet  quiet  appearance  of  the  eye  of  a  hunter  or  a  peasant. 

"You  may  well  imagine  that  I  have  already  told  the  story  of  my 
adventures  in  Africa  a  hundred  times  and  in  the  same  way,"  said 
Benda.  "It  has  all  been  written  down,  and  will  shortly  appear  in 
book  form,  where  you  can  read  it.  It  was  an  unbroken  chain  of  toil 
and  trouble.  Frequently  I  was  as  close  to  death  as  I  am  to  this  wall. 
I  devoured  enough  quinine  to  fill  a  freight  car,  and  yet  it  was 
always  the  same  old  story,  fever  to-day,  to-moirow,  for  six  months 
in  the  year.  I  have,  I  fear,  ruined  my  health;  I  am  afraid  my 
old  heart  will  not  last  much  longer.  The  eternal  vigilance  I  was 
obliged  to  exercise,  the  incessant  fight  for  so  simple  a  thing  as  a 
path,  or  for  more  urgent  things  such  as  food  and  drink,  has  told 
on  me.  I  suffered  terribly  from  the  sun;  also  from  the  rain.  I 
had  very  few  of  the  comforts  of  life;  I  was  often  forced  to  sleep 
on  the  ground.  And  there  was  no  one  to  talk  to,  no  sense  of 
security." 

"And  yet,"  he  continued,  "I  had  my  reward.  When  I  look 
back  on  it  all,  there  is  not  an  hour  that  I  would  care  to  have  wiped 
from  my  memory.  I  accomplished  a  great  deal.  I  made  some  im- 
portant discoveries,  brought  back  enough  work  to  keep  me  busy  for 
years  to  come,  thirty-six  boxes  of  plant  preparations,  and  this  despite 
the  fact  that  the  entire  fruit  of  my  first  seven  years  of  effort  was 
burned  in  a  tent  near  Nembos.  But  apart  from  what  I  have  actu- 
ally done,  there  is  something  so  real  and  solemn  about  such  a  life. 
You  live  with  the  sky  above  you  and  savages  round  about  you. 
These  savages  are  like  children.  This  state  of  affairs  is,  to  be  sure, 
being  rapidly  changed:  Europe  is  breathing  its  pest  into  the  para- 
dise. The  wiles  and  weaknesses  of  these  savages  are  in  a  way 
touching;  you  feel  sorry  for  them  as  you  feel  sorry  for  a  dumb, 
harassed  beast.  I  had  taken  a  boy  along  with  me  from  the  bound- 
less, primeval  forests  north  of  the  Congo.  He  was  a  little  bit  of 
a  fellow,  almost  a  dwarf.  I  liked  him;  I  even  loved  him.  And 
obedient!  I  merely  had  to  make  a  sign,  and  he  was  ready.  Well, 
we  came  back  to  the  Italian  lakes,  where  I  wished  to  remain  for 
a  while  for  the  sake  of  the  climate  before  returning  to  England. 
What  happened?  At  the  sight  of  the  snow-covered  mountain  peaks 
he  was  seized  with  deathly  fear;  he  became  homesick;  and  in  a  few 
days  he  died  of  pneumonia." 


430  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

"Why  is  it  that  there  was  such  a  long  period  that  we  never  heard 
from  you?"  asked  Daniel,  with  a  timidity  and  shyness  that  made 
Benda's  heart  ache. 

"That  is  a  long  story,"  said  Benda.  "It  took  me  two  years  to 
get  through  that  fearful  forest  and  out  to  a  lake  called  Albert- 
Nyanza.  From  there  I  wanted  to  get  over  to  Egypt,  but  the  coun- 
try was  in  a  state  of  revolution  and  was  occupied  by  the  soldiers 
of  the  Mahdi.  I  was  forced  to  take  the  route  to  the  Northwest, 
ran  into  a'  pathless  wilderness,  and  for  five  years  was  a  captive  of 
a  tribe  of  the  Wadai.  The  Niam-Niam,  who  were  at  war  with  the 
Wadai,  liberated  me.  I  could  move  about  with  relative  freedom 
among  them,  but  I  could  not  go  beyond  their  boundaries,  for  they 
held  me  in  high  esteem  as  a  medicine  man  and  were  afraid  I  would 
bewitch  them  if  I  ever  got  out  of  their  personal  control.  I  had 
lost  my  guides,  and  I  had  no  money  to  hire  new  ones.  The  things 
I  needed,  because  of  the  delicacy  of  my  constitution,  as  compared 
with  theirs,  I  secured  through  the  chieftain  from  a  band  of 
Arabian  merchants.  This  was  all  very  well  so  far  as  it  went,  but 
the  chieftain  was  careful  to  keep  me  concealed  from  the  Arabs. 
I  finally  succeeded  in  coming  into  personal  touch  with  a  Sheik  to 
whom  I  could  make  myself  understood.  It  was  high  time,  for  I 
could  not  have  stood  it  another  year." 

Daniel  was  silent.  It  was  all  so  strange;  he  could  hardly  adapt 
himself  to  Benda's  voice  and  manner.  Memory  failed  him.  The 
world  of  Benda  was  all  too  foreign,  unknown  to  him.  What  he 
himself  felt  had  no  weight  with  his  friend;  it  did  not  even  have 
meaning.  With  the  old  sense  of  dim  defiance,  he  coaxed 
the  ghost  of  disappointment  into  his  soul;  and  his  soul  was 
weighed  down  by  the  nocturnal  darkness  like  the  glass  of  his 
window. 

"Now  I  am  enjoying  my  home,"  said  Benda  thoughtfully,  "I 
am  enjoying  a  milder  light,  a  more  ordered  civilisation.  I  have 
come  to  look  upon  Germany  as  a  definite  figure,  to  love  it  as  a 
composite  picture.  Nature,  really  great,  grand  nature  such  as 
formerly  seemed  beyond  the  reach  of  my  longings,  such  as  con- 
stituted my  idea,  my  presentiment  of  perfection,  I  have  experi- 
enced in  person;  I  have  lived  it.  It  enticed  me,  taught  me,  and 
almost  destroyed  me.  All  human  organisation,  on  the  contrary,  has 
developed  more  and  more  into  an  idea.  In  hours  that  were  as  full 
of  the  feeling  of  things  as  the  heart  is  full  of  blood,  I  have  seen 
the  scales  of  the  balance  move  up  and  down  with  the  weight  of 
two  worlds.  The  loneliness,  the  night,  the  heavens  at  night,  the 


DOROTHEA  431 

forest,  the  desert  have  shown  me  their  true  faces.  The  terrible- 
ness  that  at  times  proceeds  from  them  has  no  equal  in  any  other 
condition  of  existence.  I  understood  for  the  first  time  the  law 
that  binds  families,  peoples,  states  together.  I  have  repudiated  all 
thought  of  rebellion,  and  sworn  to  co-operate,  to  do  nothing  but 
co-operate. 

"I  want  to  make  a  confession  to  you,"  he  continued.  "I  never 
had  the  faintest  conception  of  the  rhythm  of  life  until  I  went  to 
Africa.  I  hr.d  known  how  long  it  takes  to  grow  a  tree;  I  was 
familiar  with  the  metamorphoses  through  which  a  plant  must 
pass  before  it  attains  to  perfection  and  becomes  what  it  is;  but  it 
had  never  occurred  to  me  to  apply  these  laws  and  facts  to  our  own 
lives;  this  had  never  entered  my  mind.  I  had  demanded  too 
much;  I  had  been  in  too  much  of  a  hurry.  Egoistic  impatience  had 
placed  false  weights  and  measures  in  my  hands.  What  I  have 
learned  during  these  seventeen  years  of  trial  and  hardship  is  pa- 
tience. Everything  moves  so  slowly.  Humanity  is  still  a  child, 
and  yet  we  demand  justice  of  it,  expect  right  and  righteous  action 
from  it.  Justice?  Oh,  there  is  still  a  long,  long  road  to  be  trav- 
elled before  we  reach  Justice!  The  way  is  as  long  and  arduous  as 
that  from  the  primeval  forest  to  the  cultivated  garden.  We  must 
exercise  patience — for  the  benefit  of  the  many  generations  of  men 
that  are  to  come  after  us." 

Daniel  got  up  and  began  to  walk  back  and  forth.  After  a 
silence  that  was  exceedingly  painful  to  Benda,  he  said:  "Let's  go 
out.  Let's  go  to  a  cafe,  or  take  a  long  walk  on  the  streets,  or  go 
wherever  you  would  like  to  go.  Or  if  I  am  a  burden  to  you,  I 
will  accompany  you  for  a  short  stretch  and  then  remain  alone. 
The  point  is,  I  cannot  stay  here  any  longer;  I  cannot  stand  it 
here." 

"A  burden  to  me?"  replied  Benda  reproachfully.  That  was  the 
tone,  the  look  of  years  gone  by.  Daniel  felt  at  once  that  he  was 
personally  under  no  obligation  to  talk.  He  saw  at  once  that  Benda 
knew  a  great  deal  and  suspected  the  rest.  He  felt  his  heart  grow 
lighter. 

They  went  downstairs. 

XV 

Daniel  asked  Benda  to  wait  on  the  stairs,  locked  the  door,  and 
took  his  hat  from  the  hook.  In  the  living  room  there  was  a  great 
deal  of  noise  punctuated  with  laughter.  Philippina  came  out  of 


432  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

her  room,  and  snarled:  "The  way  they're  carrying  on  in  there! 
You'd  think  they  wuz  all  drunk!" 

"What  is  going  on?"  asked  .Daniel  timidly,  merely  to  have 
something  to  say. 

"They  are  playing  blindfold,"  replied  Philippina  contemptu- 
ously, "every  one  of  them  is  an  old  bird,  and  they're  playing 
blindfold!" 

There  was  a  sound  as  if  a  plate  had  been  broken;  a  piercing 
scream  followed,  and  then  silence.  But  the  silence  was  of  momen- 
tary duration:  that  vulgar,  slimy  laughter  soon  broke  out  again. 

Above  the  din  of  screaming  voices,  Daniel  heard  Dorothea's. 
He  hastened  to  the  door  and  opened  it. 

His  enraged  eye  fell  on  the  table  covered  with  pots,  empty 
cups,  and  pastry.  The  chairs  had  been  pushed  to  one  side;  the  new 
gas  chandelier  with  its  five  frosted  globes  was  functioning  at  full 
force;  there  were  seven  or  eight  persons  grouped  around  Dorothea, 
laughing  and  looking  at  something  that  had  fallen  on  the  floor. 

Dorothea  had  pushed  the  white  sash  she  had  been  wearing  while 
playing  blindfold  back  on  her  forehead.  She  was  the  first  to  see 
Daniel;  she  exclaimed:  "There  is  my  husband.  Now  don't  get 
angry,  Daniel;  it's  nothing  but  that  idiotic  plaster  mask." 

Councillor  Finkeldey,  a  white-bearded  man,  nodded  at  Daniel, 
or  at  least  at  the  spot  where  he  was  standing,  with  marked  en- 
thusiasm. It  was  his  way  of  paying  homage  to  Dorothea:  every- 
thing she  said  he  accompanied  with  an  inspired  nod  of  approval. 

Daniel  saw  that  the  mask  of  Zingarella  had  been  broken  to 
pieces. 

Without  greeting  a  single  person  present,  without  even  looking 
at  a  single  one  of  them,  he  stepped  into  the  circle,  knelt  down, 
and  tried  to  put  the  broken  pieces  of  the  mask  together.  But 
there  were  too  many  small  shreds.  The  nose,  the  chin,  parts  of 
the  glorious  forehead,  a  piece  with  the  mouth  arched  in  sorrow, 
another  piece  of  the  cheek — there  were  too  many;  they  could  not 
be  put  together. 

He  hurled  the  fragments  to  one  side,  and  straightened  up. 
"Philippina!  The  broom!"  His  command  was  given  in  a  loud 
tone.  And  when  Philippina  came  in  with  the  broom,  he  added: 
"Sweep  the  dirt  up  on  a  pile,  and  then  throw  it  in  the  garbage 
can." 

Philippina  swept  up,  while  Daniel,  as  silent  and  unsocial  on 
going  as  he  had  been  on  coming,  left  the  room. 

Frau     Feistelmann     made    an     indignant     face,     Edward     Hahn 


DOROTHEA  433 

breathed  through  his  nose,  Herr  Samuelsky,  a  fat  man  with  a  red 
beard,  made  a  contemptuous  remark,  Dorothea,  vexed  and  an- 
noyed, stood  and  looked  on  while  the  tears  took  their  unrestrained 
course. 

Benda  had  been  waiting  down  at  the  front  door.  "She  has 
broken  my  mask,"  said  Daniel  with  a  distorted  smile,  as  he  came 
down  to  his  old  friend,  "the  mask  you  gave  me.  You  remember! 
Strange  that  it  should  have  been  broken  to-day  of  all  days,  the 
very  day  you  come  to  see  me  after  so  long  a  separation." 

"Possibly  it  can  be  glued  together  again,"  said  Benda,  trying  to 
console  Daniel. 

"I  am  not  in  favour  of  glueing  things  together,"  replied  Daniel. 
His  eyes  flashed  green  behind  his  glasses. 

xvi 

When  the  guests  left,  Philippina  came  in  and  cleaned  up  the 
room.  Dorothea  sat  on  the  sofa.  Her  hands  were  lying  in  her 
lap;  she  was  unusually  serious. 

"Why  don't  your  American  ever  come  to  see  us?"  asked  Philip- 
pina, without  apparent  motive. 

Dorothea  was  terrified.  "Lock  the  door,  Philippina,"  she  whis- 
pered, "I  have  something  to  tell  you." 

Philippina  locked  the  door,  and  went  over  to  the  sofa.  "The 
American  has  to  see  me,"  continued  Dorothea,  as  her  eyes  roamed 
about  the  room  in  timid  waywardness.  "He  says  he  wants  to  talk  to 
me  about  something  that  will  be  of  very  great  importance  to  me 
the  rest  of  my  life.  He  is  living  in  a  hotel,  but  I  can't  go  to  a 
hotel.  It  will  not  do  to  have  him  come  here,  nor  do  I  wish  to 
be  seen  on  the  street  with  him.  He  has  suggested  a  place  where 
we  might  meet,  but  I  am  afraid:  I  do  not  know  the  people.  Can't 
you  help  me  out,  Philippina?  Don't  you  know  some  one  to  whom 
we  can  go  and  in  whose  house  we  can  meet?" 

Philippina's  eyes  shone  with  their  veteran  glitter.  She  thought 
for  a  second  or  two,  and  then  replied:  "Oh,  yes,  I'll  tell  you  what 
you  can  do.  Go  down  to  Frau  Hadebusch's!  She's  a  good 
friend  of  mine,  and  you  c'n  depend  on  her.  It  don't  make  no 
difference  what  takes  place  in  her  house;  it  won't  bother  even  the 
cat.  You  know  Frau  Hadebusrh!  Of  course  you  do.  What  am 
I  talking  about!  She  is  a  widow,  and  lives  all  alone  in  a  little 
house.  She  won't  rent;  she  says  she  don't  want  the  trouble.  You 
know  she's  no  young  woman  any  more.  She  is  all  alone,  mind 


434  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

you.  No  one  there  but  her  son,  and  he's  cracked.  Honest,  the 
boy  ain't  right." 

"Well,  you  go  and  talk  it  over  with  Frau  Hadebusch,  Philip- 
pina,"  said  Dorothea  timidly. 

"Very  well,  I'll  go  see  her  to-morrow  morning,"  replied  Philip- 
pina,  smiled  subserviently,  and  laid  her  horny  hand  on  Dorothea's 
tender  shoulder. 

"But  listen,  Philippina,  be  very,  very  careful.  Do  you  hear?" 
Dorothea's  eyes  became  big  and  threatening.  "Swear  that  you  will 
be  as  silent  as  the  tombs." 

"As  true  as  I'm  standing  here!"  said  Philippina.  Just  then  she 
bent  over  to  pick  up  a  hair  pin  from  the  floor. 

The  next  morning  Philippina  ran  over  to  Frau  Hadebusch's. 
The  whole  way  she  kept  humming  to  herself}  she  was  happy;  she 
was  contented. 


THE  DEVIL  LEAVES  THE  HOUSE  IN  FLAMES 


Despite  the  rain,  Daniel  and  Benda  strolled  around  the  city 
moat  until  midnight. 

The  very  thing  that  lay  heaviest  on  Daniel's  heart,  as  was  obvi- 
ous from  the  expression  on  his  face,  he  never  mentioned.  He 
told  of  his  work,  his  travels  in  connection  with  the  old  manu- 
scripts, his  position  as  organist  and  in  the  conservatory,  but  all  in 
such  a  general,  detached,  and  distraught  way,  so  tired  and  bewil- 
dered, that  Benda  was  filled  with  an  embarrassed  anguish  that  made 
courteous  attention  difficult  if  not  impossible. 

In  order  to  get  him  to  talk  more  freely,  Benda  remarked  that  he 
had  not  heard  of  the  death  of  Gertrude  and  Eleanore  until  his 
return.  He  said  he  was  terribly  pained  to  hear  of  it,  and,  try  as 
he  might,  he  could  not  help  but  brood  over  it.  But  he  had  no 
thought  of  persuading  Daniel  to  give  him  the  mournful  details. 
He  merely  wished  to  convince  himself  that  Daniel  had  become 
master  of  the  anguish  he  had  gone  through, — master  of  it  at  least 
inwardly. 

Instead  of  making  a  direct  and  logical  reply,  Daniel  said  with 
a  twitching  of  his  lips:  "Yes,  I  know,  you  have  been  here  for  quite 
a  while  already.  Inwardly  I  was  surprised  at  your  silence.  But  it 
is  not  easy  to  start  up  a  renewed  friendship  with  such  a  problematic 
creature  as  I  am." 

"You  know  you  are  wrong  when  you  say  that,"  responded  Benda 
calmly,  "and  therefore  I  refuse  to  explain  my  long  waiting.  You 
never  were  problematic  to  me,  nor  are  you  now.  I  find  you  at 
this  moment  just  as  true  and  whole  as  you  always  were,  despite  the 
fact  that  you  avoid  me,  crouch  before  me,  barricade  yourself 
against  me." 

Daniel's  breast  heaved  as  if  in  the  throes  of  a  convulsion.  He 
said  falteringly:  "First  let  that  old  confidence  return  and  grow.  I 
must  first  become  accustomed  to  the  thought  that  there  is  a  man 
near  me  who  feels  with  me,  sympathises  with  me,  understands  me. 
To  be  sure,  you  want  me  to  talk.  But  I  cannot  talk,  at  least  not 
of  those  things  about  which  you  would  like  to  hear.  I  am  afraid: 
I  shudder  at  the  thought;  I  have  forgotten  how;  words  mock  me, 

435 


436  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

make  me  feel  ashamed.  Even  when  I  have  good  dreams,  I  person- 
ally am  as  happily  and  blessedly  silent  in  them  as  the  beast  of  the 
field.  I  shudder  at  the  thought  of  reaching  down  into  my  soul 
and  pulling  out  old,  rusty  things  and  showing  them  to  you — 
mouldy  fruit,  slag,  junk — showing  them  to  you,  you  who  knew 
me  when  all  within  me  was  crystal." 

He  fixed  his  eyes  on  the  clouds  and  then  continued:  "But  there 
is  probably  another  means,  Friedrich.  Look,  friend,  look!  It  was 
always  your  affair  to  look,  to  behold.  Look,  but  see  to  it  that  you 
do  not  make  me  writhe  before  you  like  a  worm  in  the  dust!  And 
when  you  have  looked — wisdom  needs  only  one  spoken  word  for 
ten  that  are  unspoken.  This  one  word  you  will  surely  draw  from 
me." 

Benda,  deeply  moved,  remained  silent:  "Is  it  the  fault  of  a 
woman?"  he  asked  gently,  as  they  crossed  the  drawbridge  and 
entered  the  desolate  old  door  leading  to  the  castle. 

"The  fault  of  a  woman?  No!  Not  really  the  fault  of  a 
woman.  It  is  rather  the  fault  of  a  man — my  fault.  Many  a 
fate  reaches  the  decisive  point  in  happiness,  many  not  until  col- 
oured with  guilt.  And  guilt  is  bitter.  The  fault  of  a  woman!" 
he  repeated,  in  a  voice  that  threw  off  a  gruesome  echo  in  the 
vaulted  arch  of  the  gateway  to  the  castle.  "There  is  to  be  sure  a 
woman  there;  and  when  one  has  anything  to  do  with  her,  he  finds 
himself  with  nothing  left  but  his  eyes  for  weeping." 

They  left  the  gateway.  Benda  laid  one  hand  on  Daniel's 
shoulder,  and  pointed  in  silence  at  the  sky  with  the  other.  There 
were  no  stars  to  be  seen ;  nothing  but  clouds.  Benda  however  had 
the  stars  in  mind.  Daniel  understood  his  gesture.  His  eyelids 
closed;  around  his  mouth  there  was  an  expression  of  vehement 
grief. 


Benda  was  convinced,  not  merely  that  one  great  misfortune  had 
already  taken  place,  but  that  a  still  greater  was  in  the  making. 

Whenever  he  thought  of  Dorothea,  the  picture  that  came  to  his 
mind  was  one  that  filled  him  with  fear.  And  yet,  he  thought, 
she  must  have  some  remarkable  traits,  otherwise  Daniel  would 
never  have  chosen  her  as  his  life  companion.  He  wanted  to  meet 
her. 

He  had  Daniel  invite  him  in  to  tea.  He  called  one  evening 
earlv  in  the  afternoon. 


THE  DEVIL  LEAVES  THE  HOUSE  IN  FLAMES     437 

She  received  him  with  expressions  of  ostentatious  joy.  She  said 
she  could  hardly  wait  until  he  came,  for  there  was  nothing  in  the 
world  that  madie  such  an  impression  on  her  as  a  man  who  had 
really  run  great  risks,  who  had  placed  his  very  life  at  stake.  She 
could  not  become  tired  of  asking  him  questions.  At  each  of  his 
laconic  replies  she  would  shake  her  head  with  astonishment.  Then 
she  rested  her  elbows  on  her  knees,  placed  her  head  in  her  hands, 
bent  over  and  stared  at  him  as  though  he  were  some  kind  of  prodigy 
— or  monster. 

She  asked  him  whether  he  had  been  among  cannibals,  whether 
he  had  shot  any  savages,  whether  he  had  hunted  lions,  and  whether 
it  was  really  true  that  every  Negro  chieftain  had  hundreds  of 
wives.  When  she  asked  this  question  she  made  an  insidious  face, 
and  remarked  that  Europeans  would  do  the  same  thing  if  the  law 
allowed. 

Thereupon  she  said  that  she  could  not  recall  having  seen  him, 
when  still  a  child,  in  her  father's  house,  and  she  was  surprised  at 
this,  for  he  had  such  a  striking  personality.  She  devoured  him 
with  her  eyes;  they  began  to  burn  as  they  always  did  when  she 
wanted  to  make  some  kind  of  human  capture,  and  blind  greed 
came  over  her.  She  unbent;  she  spoke  in  her  very  sweetest  voice; 
in  her  laugh  and  her  smile  there  was,  in  fact,  something  irresisti- 
ble, something  like  that  trait  we  notice  in  good,  confiding,  but  at 
times  obstinate  children. 

But  she  noticed  that  this  man  studied  her,  not  as  if  she  were 
a  young  married  woman  who  were  trying  to  please  him  and  gain 
his  sympathy,  rather  as  a  curious  variety  of  the  human  species. 
There  was  something  in  his  face  that  made  her  tremble  with 
irritation,  and  all  of  a  sudden  her  eyes  were  filled  with  hate  and 
distrust. 

Benda  felt  sorry  for  her.  This  everlasting  attempt  to  make  a 
seductive  gesture,  this  fishing  for  words  that  would  convey  a  double 
meaning,  this  self-betrayal,  this  excitement  about  nothing,  made 
him  feel  sad.  Dorothea  did  not  seem  to  him  a  bad  woman. 
Whatever  else  she  might  be  accused  of,  it  did  not  seem  to 
him  that  she  was  guilty  of  downright  immoral  practices.  He 
felt  that  she  was  merely  misguided,  poisoned,  a  phantom  and  a 
fool. 

His  mind  went  back  to  certain  Ethiopian  women  in  the  very 
heart  of  Africa;  he  thought  of  their  noble  walk,  the  proud  rest- 
fulness  of  their  features,  their  chaste  nudeness,  and  their  in- 
separability from  the  earth  and  the  air. 


438  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

He  nevertheless  understood  his  friend:  the  musician  could  not 
help  but  succumb  to  the  charms  of  the  phantom;  the  lonely  man 
sought  the  least  lonely  of  all  human  beings. 

As  he  was  coming  to  this  conclusion,  Daniel  entered  the  room. 
He  greeted  Benda,  and  said  to  Dorothea:  "There  is  a  girl  outside 
who  says  she  has  some  ostrich  feathers  for  you.  Did  you  order  any 
feathers?" 

"Oh,  yes,"  replied  Dorothea  hastily,  "it  is  a  present  from  my 
friend,  Emmy  Biittinger." 

"Who's  she?" 

"You  don't  know  her?  Why,  she  is  the  sister  of  Frau  Feistel- 
mann  You  must  help  me,"  she  said,  turning  to  Benda,  "for  you 
must  know  all  about  this  kind  of  things.  There  where  you  have 
been  ostriches  must  be  as  thick  as  chickens  here  at  home."  Laugh- 
ing, she  went  out,  and  returned  in  due  time  with  a  big  box,  from 
which,  cautiously  and  with  evident  delight,  she  took  two  big 
feathers,  one  white,  one  black.  Holding  them  by  the  stem,  she 
laid  them  across  her  hair,  stepped  up  to  the  mirror,  and  looked 
at  herself  with  an  intoxicated  mien. 

In  this  mien  there  was  something  so  extraordinary,  indeed  un- 
canny, that  Benda  could  not  help  but  cast  a  horrified  glance  at 
Daniel. 

"This  is  the  first  time  I  ever  knew  what  a  mirror  was,"  he  said 
to  himself. 


in 

That  evening  Daniel  visited  Benda  in  his  home.  Benda  showed 
him  some  armour  and  implements  he  had  brought  back  with  him 
from  Africa.  In  explaining  some  of  the  more  unusual  objects, 
he  described  at  length  the  customs  of  the  African  blacks. 

Then  he  was  seized  with  a  headache,  sat  down  in  his  easy  chair, 
and  was  silent  for  a  long  while.  He  suddenly  looked  like  an  old 
man.  The  ravages  his  health  had  suffered  while  in  the  tropics 
became  visible. 

"Did  you  ever  see  Dorothea's  mother? "  he  asked,  by  way  of 
breaking  the  long  silence. 

Daniel  shook  his  head:  "It  is  said  that  she  is  vegetating,  a  mere 
shadow  of  her  former  self,  in  some  kind  of  an  institution  in 
Erlangen,"  he  replied. 

"I  have  been  told  that  neither  Andreas  Doderlcin  nor  his  daugh- 
ter has  ever,  in  all  these  years,  taken  the  slightest  interest  in  the 


THE  DEVIL  LEAVES  THE  HOUSE  IN  FLAMES     439 

unfortunate  woman,"  continued  Benda.  "Well,  as  to  Andreas 
Doderlein,  I  have  always  known  what  to  expect  of  him." 

Daniel  looked  up.  "You  hinted  once  that  Doderlein  was  guilty 
of  reprehensible  conduct  with  regard  to  his  wife.  Do  you  recall? 
Is  that  in  any  way  connected  with  Dorothea  and  her  life?  Do 
you  care  to  discuss  the  matter? " 

"I  have  no  objection  whatever  to  throwing  such  light  on  the 
incident  as  I  have,"  replied  Benda.  "It  does  have  to  do  with 
Dorothea,  and  it  explains,  perhaps,  some  things  about  her.  That 
is,  it  is  possible  that  her  character  is  in  part  due  to  the  kind  of 
father  she  grew  up  under  and  the  kind  of  mother  she  lost  when  a 
mere  child.  It  is  strange  the  way  these  things  work  out:  I  am 
myself,  in  a  way,  interwoven  with  your  own  fate." 

He  was  silent  for  a  while;  memories  were  rushing  to  his  mind. 
Then  he  began:  "If  you  had  ever  known  Marguerite  Doderlein, 
she  would  have  been  just  as  unforgettable  to  you  as  she  is  to  me. 
She  and  Eleanore — those  were  the  two  really  musical  women  I 
have  known  in  my  life.  They  were  both  all  nature,  all  soul. 
Marguerite's  youth  was  a  prison;  her  brother  Carovius  was  the 
jailer.  When  she  married  Doderlein,  she  somehow  fancied  she 
would  escape  from  that  prison,  but  she  merely  exchanged  one  for 
the  other.  And  yet  she  hardly  knew  how  it  all  came  about.  She 
accepted  everything  just  as  it  came  to  her  with  unwavering  fidelity 
and  gentleness.  Her  soul  remained  unlacerated,  unembittered." 

He  rested  his  head  on  his  hand;  his  voice  became  gentler.  "We 
loved  one  another  before  we  had  ever  spoken  a  word  to  each 
other.  We  met  each  other  a  few  times  on  the  street,  once  in  a 
while  in  the  park;  and  a  number  of  times  she  stole  up  to  me  in  the 
theatre.  I  was  not  reserved:  I  offered  her  my  life,  but  she  always 
insisted  that  she  could  not  live  without  her  child  and  be  happy. 
I  respected  her  feelings  and  restrained  my  own.  For  a  while 
things  went  on  in  this  way.  We  tortured  ourselves,  practised  resig- 
nation, but  were  drawn  together  again,  and  then  Doderlein  suddenly 
began  to  be  suspicious.  Whether  his  suspicion  was  due  to  whisper- 
ings or  to  what  he  himself  had  at  some  time  seen  his  wife  do — it 
was  impossible  for  her  to  play  the  hypocrite — I  really  do  not  know. 
At  any  rate  he  began  to  abuse  her  in  the  most  perfidious  manner. 
He  tried  to  disturb  her  conscience.  One  night  he  went  to  her  bed 
with  a  crucifix  in  his  hand,  and  made  her  swear,  swear  on  the  life 
of  her  child,  that  she  would  never  deceive  him.  He  used  all 
manner  of  threats  and  unctuous  fustian.  She  took  the  oath." 

"Yes,  my  friend,  she  took  the  oath.     And  this  oath  seemed  to 


440  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

her  much  more  solemn  and  serious  than  the  oath  she  had  taken  at 
the  altar  the  day  they  were  married.  I  knew  nothing  about  it; 
she  kept  out  of  my  sight.  I  could  not  endure  it.  One  day  she 
came  to  me  again  to  say  good-bye.  There  followed  a  moment 
when  human  strength  was  no  longer  of  avail,  and  human  delibera- 
tion the  emptiest  of  words.  The  fatal  situation  developed.  The 
delicately  moulded  woman  succumbed  to  a  sense  of  guilt;  her 
heart  grew  irresponsive  to  feelings,  her  mind  dark.  She  was 
stricken  with  the  delusion  that  her  child  was  slowly  dying  in  her 
arms,  and  one  day  she  collapsed  completely.  The  rest  is  known." 

Benda  got  up,  went  over  to  the  window,  and  looked  out  into 
the  darkness. 

Daniel  felt  as  if  a  rope  were  being  tightened  about  his  neck. 
He  too  got  up,  murmured  a  farewell,  and  left. 

IV 

He  had  reached  the  Behaim  monument  when  he  began  to  walk 
more  slowly.  A  short  distance  before  him  he  saw  a  man  and  a 
woman.  He  recognized  Dorothea. 

They  were  speaking  very  rapidly  and  in  subdued  tones.  Daniel 
followed  them;  and  when  they  reached  the  door  of  his  house  and 
turned  to  go  in,  he  stopped  in  the  shadow  of  the  church. 

The  man  seemed  to  be  angry  and  excited:  Dorothea  was  trying 
to  quiet  him.  She  was  standing  close  by  him;  she  held  his  hand 
in  her?  until  she  unlocked  the  door.  First  she  whispered,  looked 
up  at  the  house  anxiously,  and  then  said  out  loud:  "Good  night, 
Edmund.  Sweet  dreams!" 

The  man  went  on  his  way  without  lifting  his  hat.  Dorothea 
hastened  m. 

Daniel  was  trembling  in  his  whole  body.  There  was  something 
in  his  eyes  that  seemed  to  be  beseeching;  and  there  was  some- 
thing mystic  about  them.  He  watched  until  the  light  had  been 
lighted  upstairs  and  the  window  shade  drawn.  He  was  tortured 
by  the  stillness  of  the  Square;  when  the  clock  in  the  tower  struck 
eleven  he  thought  he  could  hear  the  blood  roaring  in  his  ears. 

It  was  only  with  difficulty  that  he  dragged  himself  into  the  house. 
Dorothea,  already  in  her  night-gown,  was  sitting  at  the  table  in  the 
living  room,  sewing  a  ribbon  on  the  dress  she  had  just  been  wearing: 
it  had  somehow  got  loose. 

They  spol.c  to  each  other  Daniel  stood  behind  her,  near  the 
stove,  and  looked  over  at  the  back  of  her  bared  neck  as  if  held 


THE  DEVIL  LEAVES  THE  HOUSE  IN  FLAMES     441 

by  a  spell.  One  cold  shiver  after  another  was  running  through 
his  body. 

"Who  gave  you  those  ostrich  feathers? "  he  asked,  suddenly  and 
rather  brusquely.  The  question  slipped  from  his  lips  before  he 
himself  was  aware  of  it.  He  would  have  liked  to  say  some- 
thing else. 

Dorothea  raised  her  head  with  a  jerk.  "I  thought  I  told  you," 
she  replied,  and  he  noticed  that  she  coloured  up. 

"I  cannot  believe  that  a  perfect  stranger,  and  a  woman  at  that, 
is  making  you  such  costly  presents,"  said  Daniel  slowly. 

Dorothea  got  up,  and  looked  at  him  rather  undecidedly.  "Very 
well,  if  you  simply  must  know,  I  bought  them  myself,"  she  said 
with  unusual  defiance.  "But  you  don't  need  to  try  to  brow-beat 
me  like  that;  I'll  get  the  money  that  I  paid  for  them.  And  you 
needn't  think  for  a  minute  that  I  am  going  to  let  you  draw  up  a 
family  budget,  and  expect  to  make  me  live  by  it." 

"You  didn't  buy  those  feathers,"  said  Daniel,  cutting  her  off  in 
the  middle  of  her  harangue. 

"I  didn't  buy  them,  and  they  were  not  given  to  me!  How 
did  I  get  them  then?  Stole  them  perhaps?"  Dorothea  was  scorn- 
ful; but  cowardice  made  it  impossible  for  her  to  look  Daniel  in 
the  face. 

"I  have  never  in  my  life  talked  to  any  one  in  this  way,  nor  has 
any  one  ever  spoken  to  me  like  that,"  thought  Daniel  to  himself. 
He  turned  deathly  pale,  went  up  to  her,  and  placed  his  hand  like 
an  iron  vise  about  her  arm.  "I  shall  permit  you  to  waste  my  money; 
I  shall  not  object  if  you  fritter  your  time  away  in  the  company 
of  good-for-nothing  people;  if  you  regard  my  health  and  peace 
of  mind  as  of  no  consequence  whatever,  I  shall  say  nothing;  if  you 
let  your  poor  little  child  suffer  and  pine  away,  I  shall  keep  quiet. 
I  shall  submit  to  all  of  this.  And  why  shouldn't  I?  Why  should 
I  want  to  have  my  meals  served  at  regular  hours?  Why  should 
I  insist  that  my  morning  coffee  be  warm  and  my  rolls  fresh  from 
the  baker?  Why  should  I  be  so  exacting  as  to  ask  that  my  clothes 
be  mended,  my  windows  washed,  my  room  swept,  and  my  table  in 
order?  I  was  not  born  with  a  silver  spoon  in  my  mouth;  I  have 
never  known  what  it  was  to  be  comfortable." 

"Oh,  listen,  Daniel,  it's  too  bad  about  you,"  said  Dorothea  in 
an  anxious  tone,  "but  let  go  of  my  arm." 

He  loosened  his  grip  on  her  arm,  but  did  not  let  it  go.  "You 
may  associate  with  whomsoever  you  please.  Let  those  people 
treasure  you  to  whom  you  are  a  treasure.  So  far  as  money  is  con- 


442  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

cerned,  you  can  have  all  that  I  have.  Here  it  is,  take  it."  He 
drew  from  hi?  pocket  an  embroidered  purse  filled  with  coins,  and 
hurled  them  on  the  table.  "So  that  you  can  wear  fine  dresses,  I 
will  play  the  organ  on  Sundays.  So  that  you  can  go  to  masquerade 
balls  and  parties  of  all  kinds,  I  will  try  to  beat  a  little  music  into 
some  twenty-odd  unmusical  idiots.  I  will  do  more  than  that:  I 
will  promise  never  to  bother  myself  about  your  behaviour:  I  will 
never  ask  you  where  you  have  been  or  where  you  are  going.  But 
listen,  Dorothea,"  he  said,  as  his  face  flushed  with  anger  and 
anxiety,  his  voice  rising  as  if  by  unconscious  pressure,  "don't  you 
ever  dare  dishonour  my  name!  It  is  the  only  thing  I  have.  I  owe 
humanity  an  irreparable  debt  for  it.  It  invests  me  not  simply  with 
what  is  known  as  civic  honour,  it  gives  me  also  the  honour  I  feel 
and  enjoy  when  I  stand  in  the  presence  of  what  I  have  created. 
Lie.  and  you  besmirch  my  name!  Lie,  and  you  sully  and  debase 
it!  I  am  probably  not  as  much  afraid  as  you  think  I  am  of  being 
regarded  as  a  cuckold,  though  I  admit  that  the  thought  of  it  makes 
my  blood  boil.  But  I  want  to  say  to  you  here  and  now,  that 
when  I  think  of  you  in  the  arms  of  another  man  I  feel  within  me 
a  deep  desire,  a  real  lust  for  murder.  But  you  would  throw  me 
into  the  last  pit  of  hell  and  damnation,  if  you  were  to  repay  the 
truths  I  have  told  you  and  given  you  with  lies,  lies,  lies.  You 
must  not,  you  dare  not,  imagine  for  a  minute  that  I  am  so  selfish 
and  vulgar  as  not  to  be  able  to  understand  that  a  change  might 
come  over  your  heart.  But  that  is  one  thing;  telling  a  lie  and 
living  a  lie  is  quite  another.  It  is  impossible  for  me  to  live  side 
by  side  with  another  human  being  except  in  absolute  truth.  A 
lie,  the  lie,  crushes  what  there  is  in  me  of  the  divine.  A  lie  to 
me  is  carrion  and  corruption.  Tell  me,  then,  whether  you  have 
been  and  are  true  to  me!  Don't  be  afraid,  Dorothea,  and  don't 
be  ashamed.  Everything  may  be  right  yet  and  work  out  as  it 
should.  But  tell  me:  Have  you  been  deceiving  me?" 

"I — deceiving  you?"  breathed  Dorothea,  and  looked  into  his  face 
as  if  hypnotised,  never  so  much  as  moving  an  eyelash.  "What 
do  you  mean?  Deceiving  you?  Do  you  really  think  that  I  would 
be  capable  of  such  baseness?" 

"You  have  no  lover?  No  other  man  has  touched  you  since  you 
have  been  my  wife?" 

"A  lover?  Some  other  man  has  touched  me?"  she  repeated 
with  that  same  hypnotic  look.  In  her  child-like  face  there  was 
the  glow  of  unadulterated  honour  and  undiluted  innocence. 

"You  have  been  having  no  secret  rendezvous,  you  have  not  been 


THE  DEVIL  LEAVES  THE  HOUSE  IN  FLAMES     443 

receiving  treacherous  letters,  nor  writing  them,  you  have  promised 
no  man  anything,  not  even  in  jest?" 

"Ah,  well  now,  Daniel,  listen!  In  jest.  That's  another  matter. 
Who  knows?  You  know  me,  and  you  know  how  one  talks  and 
laughs." 

"And  you  assure  me  that  all  this  mysterious  abuse  that  is  being 
whispered  into  my  ears  and  to  which  your  conduct  has  given  a 
certain  amount  of  plausibility  is  nothing  in  the  world  but  wicked- 
ness on  the  part  of  people  who  know  us,  nothing  but  calumny?" 

"Yes,  Daniel:  it  is  merely  wickedness,  meanness,  and  calumny." 

"You  are  willing  that  God  above  should  never  grant  you  another 
minute  of  peace,  if  you  have  been  lying  to  me?  Do  you  wish 
that,  Dorothea?" 

Dorothea  balked;  she  blinked  a  little.  Then  she  said  quite 
softly:  "Those  are  terrible  words,  Daniel.  But  if  you  insist  upon 
it,  I  am  willing  to  abide  by  the  curse  you  have  made  a  pos- 
sibility." 

Daniel  breathed  a  breath  of  relief.  He  felt  that  a  mighty 
load  had  been  taken  from  his  heart.  And  in  grateful  emotion  he 
went  up  to  his  wife,  and  pressed  her  to  his  bosom. 

But  at  the  same  time  he  was  repelled  by  something.  He  felt 
that  the  creature  he  was  pressing  to  his  heart  was  without  rhythm, 
or  vibration,  or  law,  or  order.  He  began  again  to  be  gnawed  at 
by  torture,  this  time  of  a  new  species  and  coming  from  another 
direction. 

As  he  opened  the  door  to  the  hall,  he  heard  a  rustle;  and  he 
saw  a  dark  figure  hastening  over  to  the  room  that  opened  on  the 
court. 


Left  alone,  Dorothea  stared  for  a  while  into  space,  as  motionless 
as  a  statue.  Then  she  took  her  violin  and  bow  from  the  case — 
she  had  bought  a  new  bow  to  take  the  place  of  the  one  that  had 
been  broken — and  began  to  play:  a  cadence,  a  trill,  a  waltz.  Her 
face  took  on  a  hardened,  resolute  expression. 

She  soon  let  the  instrument  fall  from  her  hands,  and  began  to 
think.  She  laid  the  violin  to  one  side,  took  off  her  slippers, 
sneaked  out  of  the  room  in  her  stocking  feet  and  across  the  hall, 
and  listened  at  the  door  to  Philippina's  room.  She  opened  it  cau- 
tiously and  heard  a  sound  snoring  from  Philippina's  bed,  which 
stood  neat  to  the  door. 


444  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

The  lamp  had  almost  burned  down;  it  gave  so  little  light  that 
the  bed  clothes  could  hardly  be  seen. 

She  stole  up  to  Philippina's  couch  of  repose,  step  by  step,  with- 
out making  the  slightest  noise,  bent  dawn,  stretched  out  her  arm, 
groped  around  over  the  body  of  the  inexplicable  creature  who  was 
sleeping  there,  and  was  on  the  point  of  raising  the  covers  and 
reaching  for  Philippina's  breast.  Philippina  ceased  snoring,  woke 
up  as  if  she  had  been  struck  in  the  face  by  the  rays  of  a  magic 
lantern,  opened  her  eyes,  and  looked  at  Dorothea  with  a  speechless 
threat.  Not  a  muscle  of  her  face  moved. 

Dorothea  collected  her  thoughts  instantly.  With  the  expression 
on  her  face  of  one  who  has  just  succeeded  in  carrying  out  some 
good  joke,  she  threw  her  whole  body  on  Philippina  and  pressed 
her  face  to  her  cheek,  nauseated  though  she  was  by  the  stench  of 
her  breath  and  the  bed  clothes. 

"Listen,  Philippina,  the  American  wants  to  give  you  something," 
she  whispered. 

"Jesus,  you're  punching  my  belly  in,"  replied  Philippina,  and 
gasped  for  breath.  When  Dorothea  had  straightened  up,  she  said: 
"Well,  has  he  already  given  you  something?  That's  the  main 
thing." 

"He  gave  me  the  feathers.  Isn't  that  something?"  replied 
Dorothea,  "and  he  is  going  to  give  me  a  set  of  rubies." 

"I  wish  you  already  had  'em.  It  seems  to  me  that  your  Ameri- 
can don't  exactly  hail  from  Givetown.  I've  been  told  that  he 
ain't  so  damn  rich  after  all.  When  are  you  goin'  to  meet  him 
again,  your  lover?" 

"To-morrow  evening,  between  six  and  seven.  Oh,  I  am  so  glad, 
so  glad,  Philippina.  He  is  so  young." 

"Yes,  young!  That's  a  lot,  ain't  it?"  murmured  Philippina 
contemptuously. 

"He  has  such  a  pretty  mole  on  his  neck,  way  down  on  his  neck, 
down  there,"  she  said,  pointing  to  the  same  spot  on  Philippina's 
neck.  "Right  there!  Does  it  tickle  you?  Does  it  make  you 
feel  good  ? " 

"Don't  laugh  so  loud,  you'll  waken  little  Gottfried,"  said 
Philippina  in  a  testy,  morose  tone.  "And  get  out  of  here!  I'm 
sleepy." 

"Good-night,  then,  you  pesky  old  dormouse,"  said  Dorothea, 
iii  seemingly  good-natured  banter,  and  left  the  room. 

Hardly  had  she  closed  the  door  behind  her  when  Philippina 
sprang  like  an  enraged  demon  from  her  bed,  clenched  her  fist, 


THE  DEVIL  LEAVES  THE  HOUSE  IN  FLAMES     445 

and  hissed:  "Damned  thief  and  whore!  She  wanted  to  rob  me, 
that's  what  she  did,  the  dirty  wench!  You  wait!  Your  days  in 
this  place  are  numbered.  Somebody's  going  to  squeal,  believe  me, 
and  when  they  do,  they'll  get  you  right." 

She  drew  her  red  petticoat  over  her  legs,  tied  it  tightly,  and 
went  to  the  door  to  lock  it.  The  lock  had  been  out  of  order  for 
some  time;  she  could  not  budge  it.  She  carried  a  chair  over  to 
the  door,  placed  it  directly  underneath  the  lock,  folded  her  arms, 
sat  down  on  it,  and  remained  sitting  there  for  an  hour  or  so  blink- 
ing her  evil  eyes. 

When  no  longer  able  to  keep  from  going  to  sleep,  she  got  up, 
placed  the  folding  table  against  the  door,  and  got  back  into  bed, 
murmuring  imprecations  such  as  were  second  nature  to  her. 

VI 

The  following  day  began  with  a  heavy  rain  storm.  Daniel  had 
had  a  restless  night;  he  went  to  his  work  quite  early.  But  his 
head  was  so  heavy  that  he  had  to  stop  every  now  and  then,  and  rest 
it  on  his  hand.  There  was  no  blood,  no  swing  to  his  ideas. 

Toward  eight  o'clock  the  postman  came,  and  asked  for  Inspector 
Jordan.  The  old  man  had  to  sign  a  receipt  in  acknowledgment 
of  a  solemnly  sealed  money  order. 

In  the  letter  the  postman  gave  him  were  two  hundred  dollars 
in  bills  and  a  note  from  Benno.  The  letter  had  been  mailed  in 
Galveston.  Benno  wrote  that  he  had  made  inquiries  and  found 
that  his  father  was  still  living.  He  said  he  had  been  quite  suc- 
cessful in  the  New  World,  and  as  a  proof  of  his  prosperity  he  was 
sending  him  the  enclosed  sum,  with  the  best  of  greetings,  in  pay- 
ment for  the  trouble  he  had  cost  his  father. 

It  was  a  cold  epistle.  But  the  old  man  was  beside  himself  with 
joy.  He  ran  to  Daniel  and  then  to  Philippina,  held  the  crisp 
notes  in  the  air,  and  stammered:  "Look,  people!  He  is  rich.  He 
has  sent  me  two  hundred  dollars!  He  has  become  an  honest  man, 
he  has.  He  remembers  his  old  father,  he  does!  Really  this  is  a 
great  day!  A  great  day,  Daniel,  because  of  something  else  that 
has  just  been  finished."  He  added  with  a  mysterious  smile:  "A 
blessed  day  in  the  history  of  a  great  cause!" 

He  dressed  and  went  down  town;  he  wanted  to  tell  his  friends 
the  news. 

Daniel  called  down  to  know  if  his  breakfast  was  ready;  nobody 
answered.  Thereupon  he  went  to  the  kitchen,  and  got  himself 


446  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

a  bottle  of  milk  and  a  loaf  of  bread.  Philippina  came  in  a  little 
later.  Her  hair  looked  as  though  a  hurricane  had  struck  it;  she 
was  in  her  worst  humour.  She  snarled  at  Daniel,  asking  him  why 
in  the  name  of  God  he  couldn't  wait  till  the  coffee  had  been 
boiled. 

"Leave  me  in  peace,  Philippina,"  he  said,  "I  need  peace." 

"Peace!"  she  roared,  "peace,  the  same  old  story:  you  want  peace!" 
She  threw  a  wild,  contemptuous  glance  at  the  open  chest  containing 
Daniel's  scores,  leaned  against  the  table,  put  the  tips  of  her  dirty 
fingers  on  the  score  he  was  then  studying,  and  shrieked:  "There  is 
the  cause  of  the  whole  malheurl  The  whole  malheur,  I  say, 
comes  from  this  damned  note-smearing  of  yours!  The  idea  of  a 
man  settin'  down  and  dabbing  them  pot-hooks  on  good  white  paper, 
day  after  day,  year  in  and  year  out!  What  does  it  all  mean?  Tell 
me!  While  you're  doin'  it,  everything  else  is  moving — like  a 
crab,  backwards.  Jesus,  you're  a  man,  and  yet  you  spend  your  time 
at  that  kind  of  stuff!  I'd  be  ashamed  to  admit  it." 

Not  prepared  for  this  enigmatic  outburst  of  anger  and  hate, 
Daniel  looked  at  Philippina  utterly  dazed.  "Get  out  of  here,"  he 
cried  indignantly.  "Get  out  of  here,  I  say,"  and  pointed  to  the 
door. 

She  got  out.  "The  damned  dabbery!"  she  bellowed  with  re- 
inforced maliciousness. 

From  ten  to  twelve,  Daniel  had  to  lecture  at  the  conservatory. 
His  heart  beat  violently,  though  he  was  unable  to  explain  his  excite- 
ment. It  was  more  than  a  foreboding:  he  felt  as  if  he  had  heard 
a  piece  of  terribly  bad  news  and  the  real  nature  of  it  had  slipped 
his  memory. 

He  did  not  go  home  for  luncheon;  he  ate  in  the  cafe  at  the 
Carthusian  Gate.  Then  he  took  a  long  walk  out  over  the  fields 
and  meadows.  It  had  stopped  raining,  and  the  brisk  wind  refreshed 
him.  He  stood  for  a  long  while  on  the  banks  of  the  canal,  and 
watched  some  men  piling  bricks  at  a  brick-kiln.  From  time  to 
time  he  took  a  piece  of  paper  from  his  pocket,  and  wrote  some- 
thing on  it  with  his  pencil:  it  was  notes. 

Once  he  wrote  alongside  of  a  motif:  "Farewell,  my  music!" 
His  eyes  were  filled  with  dreadful  tears. 

He  returned  to  the  city  just  as  the  sun  was  setting;  it  looked 
like  a  huge  ball  of  fire  in  the  west.  The  sky  shone  out  between 
two  great  black  clouds  like  the  forge  of  a  smithy.  He  could  not 
help  but  think  of  Fleanore. 

He  entered  his  living  room,  and  paced  back  and  forth,     Philip- 


THE  DEVIL  LEAVES  THE  HOUSE  IN  FLAMES     447 

pina  came  in,  and  asked  him  whether  she  should  warm  up  his  soup 
for  him.  Her  unnatural,  singing  tone  attracted  his  attention;  he 
looked  at  her  very  closely. 

"Where  is  my  wife?"  he  asked. 

Philippina's  face  betrayed  an  abysmally  mean  smile,  but  she 
never  said  a  word. 

"Where  is  my  wife?"  he  asked  a  second  time,  after  a  pause. 

Philippina's  smile  became  brighter.  "Is  it  cold  out?"  she  asked, 
and  in  a  moment  she  had  left  the  room.  Daniel  stared  at  her  as  if 
he  feared  she  had  lost  her  mind.  In  a  few  minutes  she  came 
back.  In  the  meantime  she  had  put  on  a  cloak  that  was  much 
too  short  for  her,  and  beneath  which  the  loud,  freakish  skirt  of 
her  checkered  dress  could  be  seen. 

"Daniel,  come  along  with  me,"  she  said  in  an  anxious  voice. 
To  Daniel  her  voice  sounded  mysterious  and  fearful.  "Come  along 
with  me,  Daniel!  I  want  to  show  you  something." 

He  turned  pale,  put  on  his  hat,  and  followed  her.  They 
crossed  the  square  in  silence,  went  through  Binder  Street,  Town 
Hall  Street,  and  across  the  Market.  Daniel  stopped.  "What  are 
you  up  to? "  he  asked  with  a  hoarse  voice. 

"Come  along!      You'll  see,"  whispered  Philippina. 

They  walked  on,  crossed  the  Meat  Bridge,  went  through  Kaiser 
Street  and  the  White  Tower  to  St.  James's  Place.  Some  people 
looked  at  the  odd  couple  in  amazement.  When  they  reached  Frau 
Hadebusch's  little  house,  it  was  dark.  "Listen,  Philippina,  are  you 
ever  going  to  talk?"  said  Daniel,  gritting  his  teeth. 

"Psh!"  Philippina  knew  what  she  was  doing.  She  put  her 
mouth  to  Daniel's  ear,  and  whispered:  "Go  up  two  flights,  quick, 
you  know  the  house,  bang  on  the  door,  and  if  it's  locked,  bust  it  in. 
In  the  meantime  I'll  go  to  Frau  Hadebusch  so  that  she  can't  inter- 
fere." 

Then  Daniel  understood. 


VII 

Everything  became  blood-red  before  his  eyes;  he  was  seized 
with  a  feverish  chill. 

He  had  followed  Philippina  with  a  dejected,  limp  feeling  of 
disgust,  fear  and  coercion.  Now  he  knew  what  it  was  all  about. 
At  the  very  beginning  of  the  events  he  saw  the  middle  and  the 
end.  He  saw  before  the  bolted  door  what  was  going  on  behind 
it.  His  soul  was  seized  with  horror,  rage,  woe,  contempt,  and 


448  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

terror.      He    felt    dizzy;    he    feared   he    might    lose    consciousness. 

He  sprang  up  the  creaking  stairs  by  leaps  and  bounds.  He  stood 
before  the  door  behind  which  he  had  gone  hungry,  been  cold,  and 
glowed  with  enthusiasm  as  a  young  man.  Silence  should  have 
reigned  there  now,  so  that  the  devotion  of  retrospective  spirits 
might  not  be  molested  on  the  grave  of  so  many,  many  hopes. 

He  jerked  at  the  latch;  a  scream  was  heard  from  within.  The 
door  was  bolted.  He  pressed  his  body  against  the  fragile  wood  so 
violently  that  both  hinges,  and  the  latch,  gave  way,  and  the  door 
fell  on  to  the  middle  of  the  floor  with  a  mighty  crash. 

The  scream  was  repeated,  this  time  in  a  more  piercing  tone. 
Dorothea  was  lying  on  a  big  bed  with  nothing  on  but  a  flimsy 
chemise.  Frau  Hadebusch,  pimp  always,  had  rented  the  bed  from 
a  second-hand  dealer;  it  covered  a  half  of  the  room.  Before 
Dorothea  was  a  plate  of  cherries;  she  had  been  amusing  herself  by 
shooting  the  pits  at  her  lover.  He  likewise  was  lacking  nearly  all 
the  garments  ordinarily  worn  by  men  when  in  the  presence  of 
women.  He  was  sitting  astride  on  a  chair,  smoking  a  short-stemmed 

Pipe- 
When  Daniel,  with  bloody  hands — he  had  scratched  himself 
while  breaking  in  the  door — with  his  hair  flying  wild  about  his 
face,  panting,  and  pale  as  death,  stepped  over  the  door,  Dorothea 
again  began  to  scream ;  she  screamed  seven  or  eight  times.  She 
was  filled  with  despair  and  terrible  anxiety. 

Daniel  rushed  at  the  young  man,  and  seized  him  by  the  throat. 
While  he  held  the  American  in  a  death-like  grip,  while  he  saw 
Dorothea,  as  if  in  a  roseate  h.ize,  with  uplifted  arms,  leave  the 
bed  screaming  at  the  top  of  her  voice,  while  an  extraordinary 
power  of  observation,  despite  his  insane  rage,  came  over  him,  while 
he  watched  the  cherries  as  they  rolled  across  the  bed  and  saw 
the  green  stems,  some  of  which  were  withered,  showing  that  the 
cherries  were  half  rotten,  while  he  felt  a  taste  on  his  tongue  as  if 
he  too  had  eaten  cherries — while  he  saw  all  these  things  and  had 
this  sensation,  he  thought  to  himself  without  either  doubt  or  relief: 
"This  is  the  downfall;  this  is  chaos." 

The  American — it  later  became  known  that  he  was  a  wandering 
artist  who  had,  with  an  equal  amount  of  nerve  and  adroitness, 
worked  his  way  into  the  private  social  life  of  the  city — thrust  his 
antagonist  back  with  all  his  might,  and  struck  up  the  position  of  a 
professional  boxer.  Daniel,  however,  gave  him  no  time  to  strike; 
he  fell  on  him,  wrapped  his  arms  tight  about  him,  threw  him  to 
the  floor,  and  was  trying  to  choke  him.  He  groaned,  struggled, 


THE  DEVIL  LEAVES  THE  HOUSE  IN  FLAMES     449 

got  his  fist  loose,  struck  Daniel  in  the  face,  and  cried,  "You  damned 
fool!"  But  it  was  the  cry  of  a  whipped  man. 

Loud  noise  broke  out  downstairs.  A  crowd  of  people  collected 
on  the  sidewalk.  "Police,  police!"  shrieked  the  shrill  voice  of  a 
woman.  The  people  began  to  make  their  way  up  the  stairs. 

"Oh,  oh,  oh!"  moaned  Dorothea.  In  half  a  minute  she  had 
her  dress  on.  "Out  of  this  place  and  away,"  she  said,  as  she 
looked  for  her  gloves  and  umbrella. 

Frau  Hadebusch  appeared  in  the  hall,  wringing  her  hands.  Be- 
hind her  stood  Philippina.  Two  men  forced  their  way  in,  ran 
up  to  Daniel  and  the  American,  and  tried  to  separate  them.  But 
they  had  bitten  into  each  other  like  two  mad  dogs;  *nd  it  was 
necessary  to  call  for  help.  A  soldier  and  the  milkman  gave  a 
hand;  and  finally  two  policemen  appeared  on  the  scene. 

"I  must  go  home,"  cried  Dorothea,  while  the  other  women 
shrieked  and  carried  on.  "I  must  go  home,  and  get  my  things 
and  leave." 

With  the  face  of  one  possessed  and  at  the  same  time  dumb, 
Philippina  stole  out  from  among  the  excited  crowd  and  followed 
Dorothea.  She  did  not  feel  that  she  was  walking;  she  could  not 
feel  the  pavement  under  her  feet;  she  was  unconscious  of  the  air. 
That  wild  inspiration  returned  to  her  which  she  had  experienced 
once  before  in  her  life — the  time  she  went  up  in  the  attic  and 
saw  Gertrude's  lifeless  body  hanging  from  a  rafter. 

Her  veins  pulsed  with  a  hot  lust  for  destruction.  "Swing  the 
torch!"  That  was  the  cry  she  heard  running  through  her  brain. 
"Swing  the  torch!"  But  she  wanted  to  do  something  much  more 
pretentious  this  time  than  merely  start  a  fire  in  some  rubbish. 
The  farther  she  went  the  more  rapidly  she  walked.  Finally  she 
began  to  run  and  sing  with  a  loud,  coarse  voice.  Her  cloak  was 
not  buttoned;  it  flew  in  the  air.  The  people  who  saw  her  stopped 
and  looked  at  her,  amazed. 

VIII 

Herr  Carovius  and  Jordan  were  sitting  in  the  Paradise  Cafe. 

"How  things  change,  and  how  everything  clears  up  and 
straightens  out!"  remarked  Jordan. 

"Yes,  the  open  graves  are  gaping  again,"  said  Herr  Carovius 
cynically. 

"So  far  as  I  am  concerned,"  continued  Jordan,  without  noticing 
the  aversion  his  affability  had  aroused  in  Herr  Carovius,  "I  can 


450  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

jow  face  death  with  perfect  peace  of  mind.  My  mission  is  ended; 
my  work  is  done." 

"That  sounds  as  if  you  had  discovered  the  philosopher's  stone," 
remarked  Herr  Carovius  sarcastically. 

"Perhaps,"  replied  Jordan  gently,  and  bent  over  the  table.  "You 
are  after  all  not  entirely  wrong,  my  honoured  friend.  Do  you 
wish  to  be  convinced?  Will  you  honour  me  with  a  visit?" 

Herr  Carovius  had  become  curious.  They  paid  their  bills  and 
left  for  ^gydius  Place. 

Having  entered  Jordan's  room,  the  old  man  lighted  a  lamp  and 
bolted  the  door.  He  then  opened  the  door  of  the  great  cabinet 
by  the  wall,  and  took  out  a  big  doll.  It  was  dressed  like  a  Swiss 
maid,  had  on  a  flowered  skirt,  a  linen  waist,  and  a  little  pink  apron. 
It;  yellow  hair  was  done  up  in  braids,  and  on  its  head  was  a  little 
felt  hat. 

"All  that  is  my  handiwork,"  said  Jordan,  with  much  show  of 
pride.  "I  myself  took  all  the  measurements  and  made  the  clothes, 
including  even  the  shoes.  And  now  vatch,  my  dear  friend." 

He  placed  the  doll  in  the  middle  of  the  room.  "She  will 
speak,"  he  continued,  his  face  radiant  with  joy,  "she  will  sing. 
She  will  sing  a  song  native  to  her  beloved  Tyrol.  Will  you  be 
so  good  as  to  take  this  chair?  I  would  rather  not  have  you  so 
close  to  it,  if  I  may,  for  there  are  certain  noises  which  I  still  have 
to  correct.  The  illusion  is  stronger  when  you  are  some  distance 
away." 

He  crouched  down  behind  the  doll,  did  something  at  its  back, 
and  the  buzzing  of  wheels  became  audible.  The  old  man  then 
stepped  out  to  the  front  of  the  doll,  and  said:  "Now,  my  little  girl, 
let's  hear  what  you  can  do!" 

An  uncanny,  hoarse,  somewhat  cooing  voice  rang  out  from  the 
body  of  the  doll.  It  sounded  like  the  vibrations  of  metallic  strings 
accompanied  by  th*  low  tones  of  a  water  whistle.  If  you  closed 
your  eyes,  you  could  at  least  imagine  you  were  hearing  a  song  sung 
by  some  one  in  the  distance.  But  if  you  looked  at  the  thing  closely 
with  its  lifeless,  mask-like  kindly,  waxen  face,  and  heard  the  shrill, 
muffled  sounds,  without  either  articulation  or  rhythm,  coming  from 
within,  it  took  on  a  ghostly  aspect.  Herr  Carovius  in  fact  felt  a 
cold  chill  creep  down  his  back. 

When  the  machine  ran  down,  the  doll's  eyelids  and  lips  closed. 
Jordan  was  looking  at  Herr  Carovius  in  great  suspense.  "Well, 
what  do  you  think  of  it?"  he  asked.  "Be  quite  frank;  I  can  stand 
any  amount  of  criticism." 


THE  DEVIL  LEAVES  THE  HOUSE  IN  FLAMES     451 

Herr  Carovius  had  great  difficulty  to  keep  from  bursting  out 
laughing.  His  mouth  and  chin  itched.  Suddenly,  however,  scorn 
and  contempt  left  him;  he  fell  into  a  disagreeably  serious  frame 
of  mind,  and  a  softness,  a  mildness  such  as  he  had  not  felt  since 
time  immemorial  stole  over  his  heart.  He  said:  "That  is  a  per- 
fectly splendid  invention!  Perfectly  splendid!  Though  it  does 
need  some  improvement." 

Jordan  nodded  zealously  and  with  joyous  approval.  He  was 
on  the  point  of  going  into  a  detailed  description  of  the  mechanism 
and  its  artistic  construction,  when  the  two  men  heard  a  strange 
noise  in  the  adjoining  room.  They  stopped  and  listened.  They 
could  hear  some  one  moving  the  furniture;  there  were  steps 
back  and  forth;  they  heard  a  hammering  and  pounding  as  if 
some  one  were  trying  to  open  a  box.  This  was  followed  by  a 
sound  that  resembled  the  falling  of  paper  on  the  floor;  it  lasted  for 
some  time,  bunch  apparently  following  bunch.  Listen!  Some  one 
is  talking  in  an  abusive  voice!  What's  that?  A  gruesome,  sing- 
song voice  repeating  unintelligible  words:  "I-oi!  huh,  huh!  I-oi, 
huh-huh!"  There  is  a  sound  as  if  of  crackling  fire.  The  flames 
cannot  be  seen;  but  they  can  be  heard! 

Old  Jordan  jerked  the  door  open,  and  cried  like  a  child. 

Philippina  was  standing  in  the  midst  of  a  pile  of  burning  papers. 
She  had  forced  Daniel's  trunk  open,  thrown  every  one  of  his  scores 
on  the  floor,  and  set  them  on  fire.  She  was  a  fearful  object  to 
behold.  Her  hair  hung  down  loose  and  straggly  over  her  shoulders, 
she  was  swinging  her  arms  as  if  she  were  working  a  pump-handle, 
and  from  her  mouth  poured  forth  a  volley  of  loud,  babbling, 
gurgling  tones  that  bore  not  the  faintest  resemblance  to  anything 
human.  Her  face,  lightened  by  the  flames,  was  coloured  with  the 
trace  of  fearful  voluptuousness.  Herr  Carovius  and  old  Jordan 
stood  in  the  doorway  as  if  paralysed.  Seeing  them,  she  began  to 
hop  about,  and  stretched  out  her  upraised  arms  to  the  flames,  which 
were  leaping  higher  and  higher. 

Herr  Carovius,  awakening  from  his  torpidity,  saw  that  it  was 
high  time  to  make  some  effort  to  escape.  Shielding  his  face  with 
his  hands,  he  fled  as  fast  as  his  feet  could  carry  him  to  the  hall 
door  and  down  the  steps.  Tears  were  gushing  down  Jordan's 
cheeks;  fear  had  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  reflect.  He  ran  back 
into  his  room,  opened  the  window,  and  called  out  to  the  people 
on  the  square.  Then  he  chanced  to  think  of  his  beloved  doll. 
He  rushed  up  to  it  and  took  it  under  his  arm.  But  when  he  tried 
to  leave  the  room,  the  smoke  blew  into  his  face,  benumbing  and 


452  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

burning  him.  He  staggered,  reached  the  top  of  the  stairs,  made 
a  misstep,  fell  headlong  down  the  steps,  still  holding  the  doll  in 
convulsive  embrace,  twitched  a  few  times,  and  then  lav  lifeless 
on  the  hall  floor. 

Heart  failure  had  put  an  end  to  his  life. 

Dorothea,  who  had  been  in  the  house  packing  her  things, 
hastened,  luggage  in  hand,  past  the  corpse.  Her  face  was  ashen ; 
she  never  looked  at  the  dead  body  of  Inspector  Jordan.  She  was 
soon  lost  in  the  crowd  of  excited  people.  She  had  vanished. 

IX 

The  police  had  at  last  separated  Daniel  and  the  American  in 
Frau  Hadebusch's  house.  Daniel  fell  on  a  chair,  and  gazed 
stupidly  into  space.  Frau  Hadebusch  brought  him  some  water. 
The  American  put  on  his  clothes,  while  the  spectators  looked  on 
and  laughed. 

The  two  men  were  then  taken  to  the  police  station,  where  the 
lieutenant  in  charge  took  such  depositions  as  were  necessary  for 
court  action.  Daniel  saw  a  gas  lamp,  a  quill  pen,  several  grinning 
faces,  his  own  bloody  hand,  and  nothing  more.  The  American 
was  held  in  order  to  protect  him  from  further  attacks;  Daniel 
was  released.  He  heard  the  young  man  tell  his  story  in  a  mangled 
German  and  with  a  voice  that  was  nearly  choked  with  rage,  but 
did  not  absorb  anything  he  said. 

He  heard  a  dog  bark,  a  wagon  rattle,  a  bell  strike;  he  heard 
people  talking,  murmuring,  crying;  he  heard  the  scraping  of  feet. 
But  it  all  sounded  to  him  like  noises  that  were  reaching  his  ears 
through  the  walls  of  a  prison.  He  went  on  his  way;  his  gait 
was  unsteady. 

As  he  reached  the  Church  of  Our  Lady,  Daniel  turned  to  the 
right  toward  the  Market  Place,  and  saw  the  Goose  Man  standing 
before  him. 

"Go  home,"  the  Goose  Man  seemed  to  say  with  a  sad  voice. 
"Go  home!" 

"Who  are  you?  what  do  you  wish  of  me?"  A  voice  within 
him  asked.  But  then  it  seemed  that  the  figure  had  become  in- 
visible, and  that  it  could  not  be  seen  again  until  it  was  far  off  in 
the  distance,  where  it  was  being  shone  upon  by  a  bright  light. 

People  were  running  across  /F.gydius  Place;  some  of  them  were 
crying  "Fire!"  Daniel  turned  the  corner;  he  could  see  his  house. 
Flames  were  leaping  up  behind  his  window.  He  pressed  his  hands 


THE  DEVIL  LEAVES  THE  HOUSE  IN  FLAMES     453 

to  his  temples,  and,  with  eyes  wide  open  and  filled  with  terror,  he 
forced  his  way  through  the  crowd  up  to  his  house.  "For  God's 
sake,  for  Heaven's  sake!"  he  cried,  "save  my  trunk!" 

Many  looked  at  him.  A  figure  appeared  at  the  window;  many 
arms  were  pointed  at  it.  "The  woman!  Look,  look,  the  woman!" 
came  a  cry  from  the  crowd.  And  then  again:  "She  has  set  the 
house  on  fire!  She  has  swung  the  torch  and  started  the  fire!" 

Daniel  rushed  into  his  house.  Firemen  overtook  him.  There 
he  saw  in  the  hall,  lighted  by  the  lanterns  being  carried  back  and 
forth  so  swiftly,  and  placed  in  the  corner  with  no  more  care  or 
consideration  than  was  possible  under  such  circumstances,  the  dead 
body  of  old  Jordan.  His  body,  and  close  beside  it,  as  if  in  super- 
natural mockery  of  all  things  human,  the  doll,  the  Swiss  maid 
with  the  machi-e  in  her  stomach.  Sighing  and  sobbing,  he  fell 
down;  his  forehead  touched  the  dead  hand  of  the  old  man. 

As  if  in  a  dream  he  heard  the  hissing  of  the  hoses,  the  com- 
mands, the  hurried  running  back  and  forth  of  the  firemen.  Then 
he  felt  as  if  a  shadow,  a  figure  from  the  lower  world,  suddenly 
rose  before  him.  A  clenched  fist,  he  thought,  opened  and  hurled 
shreds  of  paper  into  his  face.  When  he  looked  up  he  could  see 
nothing  but  the  firemen  rushing  around  him.  The  shadow,  the 
figure,  had  pushed  its  way  in  among  them,  and  in  the  confusion 
no  one  had  paid  any  attention  to  it. 

With  an  absent-minded  gesture,  Daniel  reached  out  and  picked 
up  the  paper  that  was  lying  nearest  him.  It  had  fallen  on  the 
face  of  the  doll.  He  unfolded  it  and  saw,  written  in  his  own 
hand,  the  music  to  the  "Harzrcise  im  Winter."  Under  the  notes 
were  the  words: 

But  aside,  who   is  it? 

His  path  in  the  bushes  is  lost, 

Behind  him  rustle 

The  thickets  together, 

The  grass  rises  again, 

The  desert  conceals  him. 

The  melody  and  rhythm  that  interpreted  the  words  were  of  a 
grandiose  gloominess,  like  a  song  of  shades  pursued  in  the  night, 
across  the  sea.  Daniel  recalled  the  hour  he  had  written  this  music; 
ho  recalled  the  expression  on  Gertrude's  face  the  time  he  played 
it  for  her.  Elcanore  was  there,  too,  wearing  a  white  dress,  with 
a  myrtle  wreath  in  her  hair.  The  tones  dissolved  the  web  of 


454  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

infinite  time.  "But  aside,  who  is  it?"  came  forth  like  a  great, 
deep  dirge.  In  the  question  there  was  something  prophetically 
great.  He  covered  his  face  and  wept;  he  felt  as  if  his  heart 
would  break. 

The  dead  man  and  the  doll  were  lying  there,  motionless,  lifeless. 

In  half  an  hour  the  fire  was  under  control.  The  two  attic 
rooms  had  been  burned  out  completely.  Further  than  this  no 
damage  had  been  done. 

Philippina  had  vanished  without  a  trace.  Since  no  one  had 
seen  her  leave  the  house,  the  first  theory  was  that  she  had  been 
burned  to  death.  But  investigation  proved  this  assumption  to  be 
incorrect.  The  police  looked  for  her  everywhere,  but  in  vain ; 
she  was  not  to  be  found.  A  few  people  who  had  known  her 
rather  intimately  insisted  that  she  had  been  burned  up  so  completely 
that  there  was  nothing  left  of  her  but  a  little  pile  of  black  ashes. 

However  this  may  be,  and  whatever  the  truth  may  be,  Philippina 
never  agai  i  entered  the  house.  No  one  ever  again  saw  or  heard  a 
thing  of  her. 


BUT  ASIDE,  WHO  IS  IT? 


LATE  in  the  evening  Benda  came.  He  had  been  tolerably  well 
informed  of  everything  that  had  taken  place.  In  the  hall  he  met 
Agnes.  Though  generally  quite  monosyllabic,  Agnes  was  now 
inclined  to  be  extremely  communicative,  but  she  could  merely  con- 
firm what  he  had  already  heard. 

She  went  up  to  the  top  floor  with  him,  and  he  stood  there  for  a 
long  while  looking  at  the  burnt  rooms.  There  were  two  firemen 
on  guard  duty.  "All  of  his  music  has  been  burnt  up,"  said  Agnes. 
Benda  thought  he  would  hardly  be  able  to  talk  with  his  old  friend 
again  after  this  tragedy.  But  he  at  once  felt  ashamed  of  his 
timidity,  and  went  down  to  see  him. 

It  was  again  quiet  throughout  the  entire  house. 

Daniel  had  lighted  a  candle  in  the  living  room.  Finding  it  too 
dark  with  only  one  candle,  he  lighted  another. 

He  paced  back  and  forth.  The  room  seemed  too  small  for  him: 
he  opened  the  door  leading  into  Dorothea's  room,  and  walked 
back  and  forth  through  it  too.  On  entering  the  dark  room,  his 
lips  would  move;  he  would  murmur  something.  When  he  returned 
to  the  lighted  room,  he  would  stand  for  a  second  or  two  and  stare 
at  the  candles. 

His  features  seemed  to  show  traces  of  human  suffering  such  as 
no  man  had  borne  before;  it  could  hardly  have  been  greater.  He 
did  not  seem  to  notice  Benda  when  he  came  in. 

"Everything  gone?  Everything  destroyed?"  asked  Benda,  after 
he  had  watched  Daniel  walk  back  and  forth  for  nearly  a  quarter 
of  an  hour. 

"One  grave  after  the  other,"  murmured  Daniel,  in  a  voice  that 
no  longer  seemed  to  be  his  own.  He  raised  his  head  as  if  sur- 
prised at  the  sound  of  what  he  himself  had  said.  He  felt  that 
a  stranger  had  come  into  the  room  without  letting  himself  be  heard. 

"And  the  last  work,  the  great  work  of  which  you  told  me, 
the  fruit  of  so  many  years,  has  it  also  been  destroyed?"  asked 
Benda. 

455 


456  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

"Everything,"  replied  Daniel  distractedly,  "everything  I  have 
created  in  the  way  of  music  from  the  time  I  first  had  reason  to 
believe  in  myself.  The  sonatas,  the  songs,  the  quartette,  the  psalm, 
the  'Harzreise,'  'Wanderers  Sturmlied,'  and  the  symphony,  every- 
thing down  to  the  last  page  and  the  last  note." 

Yes,  there  was  a  stranger  there;  you  could  hear  him  laughing 
quietly  to  himself.  "Why  do  you  laugh?"  asked  Daniel  sternly, 
and  adjusted  his  glasses. 

Benda,  terrified,  said:  "I  did  not  laugh." 

"The  grass  rises  again,  the  desert  conceals  him,"  said  the  stranger. 
He  wore  an  old-fashioned  suit,  a  droll  sort  of  cap,  and  Hessian 
boot!.  "I  ought  to  know  him,"  thought  Daniel  to  himself,  and 
began  to  meditate  with  cloudy  mind. 

"This  is  like  murder,  unheard-of  murder,"  cried  Benda's  soul; 
"how  can  he  bear  it?  What  will  he  do?" 

"What  is  there  to  do?"  asked  Daniel,  expressing  Benda's  silent 
thought  in  audible  words,  and  looking  askew,  as  he  walked  back 
and  forth,  at  the  stranger  who  went  slowly  through  the  room  over 
to  the  window  in  the  corner.  "What  can  human  fancy  find  rea- 
sonable or  possible  after  all  that  has  happened?  Nothing!  Merely 
pine  away;  pine  away  in  insanity." 

"Oho,"  said  the  stranger,  "that  is  a  trifle  strong." 

"If  he  would  only  keep  quiet,"  thought  Daniel,  tortured.  "I 
presume  you  know  what  has  happened  with  the  woman  whom  I 
called  my  wife,"  he  continued.  "That  I  threw  myself  away  on 
this  vain,  soulless  spirit  of  a  mirror  is  irrelevant.  Greater  men 
than  I  have  walked  into  such  nets  and  become  entangled,  ensnared. 
I  have  never  cherished  the  delusion  that  I  was  immune  to  all  the 
mockery  of  this  earth.  I  believed,  however,  that  I  could  scent  out 
truth  and  falsehood,  and  differentiate  the  one  from  the  other,  just 
as  the  hand  can  tell  by  the  feel  the  wet  from  the  dry.  But  the 
connection  of  the  one  with  the  other,  and  the  horrible  necessity 
of  this  connection,  I  do  not  understand." 

"You  have  been  served  just  right,"  remarked  the  intruder  with 
the  Hessian  boots.  He  had  sat  down  on  a  chair  in  the  corner,  and 
looked  quite  friendly. 

"Why?"  roared  Daniel,  stopping. 

Benda,  astounded,  rose  to  his  feet.  "Speak  out,  Daniel,"  he  said 
affectionately,  "unburden  your  soul!" 

"If  I  only  could,  Fricdrich,  if  I  only  could!  If  my  tongue 
would  only  move!  Or  if  there  were  some  one  who  felt  with  me 
and  could  speak  for  me!" 


BUT  ASIDE,  WHO  IS  IT?  457 

"Try  it;  the  first  word  is  often  like  a  spark  and  starts  a  flame." 
Daniel  was  silent.     The  intruder  said  deliberatively:  "That  goes 

deep  down  to  the  recesses  of  the  heart  and  up  high  to  the  things 

that  are  immortal." 

Daniel    looked  over   at  him   sharply,   and   saw   that    it   was   the 

Goose  Man. 


All  effort  to  get  Daniel  to  talk  was  in  vain.  Along  toward 
midnight,  Benda  took  leave  of  him.  Agnes  unlocked  the  door  for 
him;  he  said  to  her:  "Look  after  him;  he  has  no  one  else  now." 

Daniel  lay  on  the  sofa  with  his  hands  crossed  behind  his  head, 
and  stared  at  the  ceiling.  His  eyes  were  hot;  at  times  he  trembled 
and  shook. 

"It  isn't  very  sociable  here,"  said  the  Goose  Man,  "the  air  is 
full  of  tobacco  smoke,  and  there  is  a  draft  coming  in  from  that 
dark  room." 

Daniel  got  up,  closed  the  door,  and  lay  down  again. 

The  metallic  exterior  of  the  Goose  Man  seemed  to  become 
flexible,  somewhat  as  when  a  frozen  body  thaws  out.  "You  have 
gone  through  a  great  deal,"  he  continued  thoughtfully.  "That 
any  one  who  wishes  to  create  must  also  experience  is  clear.  Experi- 
ence is  his  mother's  milk,  his  realm  of  roots;  it  is  where  the  saps 
flow  together,  from  which  his  forms  and  figures  are  developed. 
But  there  is  experience  and  experience,  and  between  the  two  there 
is  a  world  of  difference." 

"Superfluous  profundity,"  murmured  Daniel,  plainly  annoyed. 
"To  live  is  to  have  experience."  He  took  council  with  himself 
in  the  attempt  to  devise  a  means  by  which  he  might  get  rid  of  the 
importunate  chatterer. 

The  Goose  Man  again  struck  up  his  gentle  laugh.  He  replied: 
"Many  live,  and  yet  do  not  live;  suffer,  and  yet  do  not  suffer. 
In  what  does  guilt  lie?  What  does  it  consist  of?  In  not  feeling;  I 
in  not  doing.  The  first  thing  for  some  men  to  do  is  to  eradicate 
completely  the  false  notions  they  have  of  what  constitutes  greatness. 
For  what  is  greatness  after  all?  It  is  nothing  in  the  world  but  the 
fulfilment  of  an  unending  circle  of  petty  duties,  small  obligations." 

"There  is  a  fundamental  difference  between  the  creator  and  all 
other  men,"  remarked  Daniel,  at  once  excited  and  troubled  by  the 
conversation  and  the  turn  it  was  taking. 

"Do  you  appeal   to,  depend  on,  refer  to  music  in   this  present 


458  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

case?"  asked  the  Goose  Man,  his  good-natured  look  becoming  more 
or  less  disdainful. 

"In  music  every  creation  is  more  closely  related  to  an  uncon- 
ditional exterior  than  is  true  of  anything  else  that  man  gives  to 
man,"  answered  Daniel.  "The  musical  genius  stands  nearer  God 
than  any  other  genius." 

The  Goose  Man  nodded.  "But  his  fall  begins  one  step  from 
God's  throne,  and  is  a  high  and  deep  one.  Do  you  know  what 
you  are?  And  do  you  really  know  what  you  are  not?" 

Daniel  pressed  his  hand  to  his  heart:  "Have  you  ever  known  me 
to  fight  for  evanescent  laurels?  Have  I  ever  tried  to  feed  the 
human  race,  which  is  a  race  of  minors,  on  surrogates?  Have  I 
ever  imitated  the  flights  of  Heaven  with  St.  Vitus  dance,  confusing 
the  one  with  the  other?  Have  I  not  always  acted  in  accord  with 
the  best,  the  inmost  knowledge  I  had,  and  in  obedience  to  my  con- 
science? Was  I  ever  a  liar?" 

"No,  no,  no!"  cried  the  Goose  Man,  by  way  of  appeasing 
Daniel's  unrest.  He  took  off  his  cap,  and  laid  it  on  his  knee. 
"You  were  always  sincere.  There  can  be  no  doubt  about  it,  your 
heart  was  always  in  your  profession.  All  life  has  streamed  into 
your  soul,  and  you  have  lived  in  the  ivory  tower.  Your  soul  was 
well  protected,  well  projected  from  the  very  beginning.  It  was 
in  a  position  similar  to  that  created  by  a  swimmer  who  rubs  his 
body  with  grease  before  plunging  into  the  water.  You  have  suf- 
fered; the  poison  of  the  Nessus  shirt  you  have  worn  has  burned 
your  skin,  and  the  pain  you  have  thereby  suffered  has  been  trans- 
formed into  sweet  sounds.  So  they  all  are,  the  creators,  invul- 
nerable and  inaccessible.  That  is  the  way  you  picture  them  to 
yourself.  Is  it  not  true?  Monsters  who  take  up  the  cross  of  the 
world,  and  yet,  grief-laden  though  they  be,  grow  beyond  their  own 
fate.  Such  is  your  lot;  and  so  do  you  look  to-day  in  your  forty- 
second  year." 

Daniel  was  not  prepared  for  this  tone  of  bitterness;  he  turned 
his  face  to  the  corner  where  the  Goose  Man  was  sitting.  "I  do 
not  understand  you,"  he  said  slowly.  The  pitiable  crying  of  little 
Gottfried  could  be  heard  from  the  room  opening  out  on  the  court, 
and  then  Agnes's  quieting  lullaby. 

"If  you  only  had  not  lived  in  the  ivory  tower!"  cried  the  Goose 
Man.  "If  you  only  had  been  more  sensitive  and  not  so  well  pro- 
tected! If  you  had  only  lived,  lived,  lived,  really  and  truly,  and 
near  to  life,  like  a  naked  man  in  a  thicket  of  thorns!  Life  would 
have  got  the  best  of  you,  but  your  love  would  have  been  real,  the 


BUT  ASIDE,  WHO  IS  IT?  459 

hate  you  have  experienced  real,  your  misfortunes  real,  the  lies, 
ridicule,  and  betrayal  all  real,  and  the  shadows  of  those  who  have 
died  from  you  would  have  taken  on  reality.  And  the  poison  of 
the  Nessus  shirt  would  not  merely  have  burned  your -skin;  it  would 
have  penetrated  to  your  very  blood,  it  would  have  found  its  way 
to  the  deepest,  most  secret  recesses  of  your  heart.  Your  work 
would  have  been  carried  on  and  out,  not  in  a  struggle  against  your 
darkness  and  your  limited  torments  of  soul,  a  slave  before  men  and 
unblessed  of  God.  Eliminate  from  your  mind  now,  forever  and 
completely,  the  delusion  that  you  have  borne  the  sufferings  of  the 
world!  You  have  merely  borne  your  own  sufferings,  loving-love- 
less, altruistic-egoist,  monster,  man  without  a  country  that  you  are!" 

"Who  are  you?  What  are  you  trying  to  say?"  asked  Daniel, 
automatically,  falteringly,  with  pale  lips. 

"Oh,  don't  you  see  who  I  am?  I  am  the  Goose  Man,"  came 
the  reply,  spoken  with  a  loyal  and  devoted  bow.  "The  Goose 
Man,  lonesome  there  behind  the  iron  fence,  lonesome  there  on  the 
water  at  the  fountain,  and  yet  situated  in  the  middle  of  the 
Market.  An  insignificant  being,  tangible  and  intelligible  to  every 
one  who  passes  by,  though  a  certain  degree  of  monumentality  has 
been  ascribed  to  me  in  all  these  years.  But  I  pay  no  attention  to 
this  ascription  of  greatness;  I  laugh  at  it.  I  give  the  Market,  where 
the  people  come  and  haggle  over  the  price  of  potatoes  and  apples, 
a  certain  degree  of  dignity.  That  is  all.  They  see  me  as  I  stand 
there,  always  upright,  under  the  open  sky;  and  despite  my  distin- 
guished position,  they  have  all  come  to  look  upon  me  as  a  cousin. 
For  a  time  they  gave  me  a  nickname:  they  called  me  by  your  name. 
But  they  had  no  right  to  do  this;  none  at  all,  it  seems  to  me.  I 
have  looked  out  for  my  geese;  no  one  can  say  a  thing  against  me." 

The  Goose  Man  laughed  a  quiet,  inoffensive  laugh;  and  when 
Daniel  turned  his  face  to  the  corner,  the  chair  was  empty,  the 
strange  guest  had  vanished. 

in 

But  he  came  back.  And  when  Daniel's  mind  and  body  were 
both  completely  broken  down  and  he  was  obliged  to  remain  in 
bed,  his  visits  became  regular.  He  sat  next  to  Benda,  for  Benda 
had  taken  to  calling  on  Daniel  now  every  day  and  staying  with  him 
until  late  at  night.  But  Daniel  grew  quieter  and  quieter.  Some- 
times he  would  make  no  reply  at  all  to  Benda's  remarks  or  questions. 

The  Goose  Man  came  in  behind  Dr.  Dingolfinger  and  stood  on 


460  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

tiptoes,  as  curious  as  curious  could  be,  and  looked  over  his  arm 
when  he  wrote  out  his  prescriptions.  The  Goose  Man  was  a  little 
fellow:  he  hardly  reached  up  to  the  doctor's  hips. 

He  hopped  around  Agnes  when  she  cooked  the  soup  and  expressed 
his  sympathy  for  her;  she  looked  so  pale.  Though  only  thirteen 
years  old,  there  was  the  worried  look  of  a  mature  woman  in  her 
face;  she  would  cast  her  eyes  around  the  room  as  if  trying  to 
catch  a  glance  of  human  love  in  the  eyes  of  another  person;  her 
looks  were  timid  and  stealthy.  "Some  one  should  be  caring  for  her 
too,"  said  the  Goose  Man,  shaking  his  head,  "some  one  should  be 
making  a  good,  warm  soup  for  her." 

Though  it  would  be  unfair  to  say  that  the  Goose  Man  was 
offensively  concerned,  he  seemed  to  be  interested  in  everything 
that  was  going  on  in  the  house.  When  the  officials  of  the  fire 
department  came  to  cross-question  Daniel  about  the  fire,  he  became 
angry  and  gruff,  and  did  not  wish  to  let  them  in.  "Give  the  poor 
man  some  rest,  some  peace,  after  all  these  years  of  suffering,"  he 
implored,  "give  him  time  to  collect  himself  and  to  meditate  on 
what  has  taken  place."  And  in  fact  the  members  of  the  fire  depart- 
ment left  as  soon  as  possible;  they  did  not  stay  long. 

The  Goose  Man  was  always  in  a  cheerful  humour,  always  ready 
for  a  good  joke.  At  times  he  would  whistle  softly,  and  smooth 
out  the  wrinkles  in  his  doublet.  There  was  a  certain  amount  of 
rustic  shyness  about  him,  but  his  affability,  his  good  manners,  and 
his  child-like  cheerfulness  removed  any  unpleasant  impression  this 
rusticity  might  otherwise  have  made.  He  generally  spoke  the  dia- 
lect of  Nuremberg,  though  when  with  Daniel  he  never  spoke  any- 
thing but  the  most  correct  and  chosen  High  German.  His  natural, 
acquired  culture  and  the  wealth  of  his  vocabulary  were  really 
amazing. 

Ten  times  a  day  at  least  he  would  scamper  into  the  room  where 
little  Gottfried  was  sleeping  and  express  his  admiration  for  the 
pretty  child.  "How  you  are  to  be  envied  to  have  such  a  living 
creature  crawling  and  sprawling  around  in  your  home!"  he  said 
to  Daniel.  And  in  course  of  time  Daniel  actually  came  to  have 
a  new  affection  for  the  child. 

As  soon  as  the  Goose  Man  felt  perfectly  at  home  in  Daniel's 
house,  he  took  to  bringing  his  two  geese  along  with  him.  He 
would  place  them  very  circumspectly  in  a  corner  of  the  room. 
One  evening  he  was  sitting  playing  with  them,  when  the  bell  rang. 
Andreas  Doderlein  stormed  in,  and  demanded  that  some  one  tell 
him  where  his  daughter  was. 


BUT  ASIDE,  WHO  IS  IT?  461 

"Upon  my  word  and  honour!  An  old  acquaintance  of  mine!" 
said  the  Goose  Man,  laughing  and  blinking.  "I  see  him  nowadays 
in  the  cafe  much  more  frequently  than  is  good  for  his  health." 

"I  must  urgently  request  you  to  control  yourself,"  said  Benda, 
turning  to  Andreas  Doderlein,  and  pointed  to  the  bed  in  which 
Daniel  was  lying. 

"My  daughter  is  not  a  bad  woman.  Let  people  overburdened 
with  credulity  believe  that  she  is  bad,"  cried  Doderlein,  with  the 
expression  and  in  the  tone  and  gesture  of  the  royal  Lear,  and 
shook  his  Olympian  locks.  "The  fact  is  that  violence  has  been 
practised  on  her;  she  has  been  driven  into  ruin!  Men  have  stolen 
the  sweet  love  of  my  dearly  beloved  daughter  through  the  use  of 
vile  tricks  and  artifices.  Where  is  she,  the  unfortunate,  betrayed 
child?  With  what  is  she  clothing  her  nakedness,  and  how  is  she 
finding  food  and  shelter — shelter  in  a  world  of  wicked  men?" 

A  strange  thing  happened:  the  Goose  Man  took  the  gigantic 
arm  of  the  Olympian,  put  his  mouth  to  his  beefy  ear,  and,  with 
a  sad  and  reproachful  look  on  his  face,  whispered  something  to 
him.  Doderlein  turned  red  and  then  pale,  looked  down  at  the 
floor,  and  went  away  with  heavy,  rumbling  step  but  silent  lips. 
The  Goose  Man  folded  his  arms  across  his  breast,  and  looked  at 
Doderlein  thoughtfully. 

"He  is  said  to  have  taken  to  drinking,"  remarked  Benda,  "is 
said  to  be  living  a  wild,  dissipated  life.  It  seems  incredible  to 
me.  The  Doderleins  are  generally  content  to  stroll  in  lust  along 
the  banks  of  the  slimy  sea  of  vice  and  let  other  people  fall  in. 
The  Doderlins  are  born  in  false  ermine,  and  they  die  in  false 
ermine." 

"And  yet  he  is  a  human  being,"  said  the  Goose  Man,  so  that 
only  Daniel  could  hear  him. 

Daniel  sighed. 

IV 

It  was  late  at  night.  Daniel  could  not  sleep.  The  Goose  Man 
crouched  at  his  feet  on  the  edge  of  the  bed,  and  looked  at  him  as 
one  looks  at  a  dear  brother  who  is  suffering  intense  pain. 

"I  cannot  deny  that  it  is  difficult  for  you  to  continue  your  life," 
said  the  Goose  Man,  trying  to  subdue  his  bright  voice.  "When 
we  sum  up  your  situation,  we  sec  day  following  day,  night  follow- 
ing night,  and  nothing  happening  that  can  be  a  cause  for  rejoicing. 
Everything  has  been  cut  off;  the  threads  have  all  been  broken;  the 


462  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

foundation  on  which  you  built  has  been  completely  annihilated. 
You  are  like  the  mother  of  many  children  who  loses  them  all,  all 
of  them,  on  a  single  day  by  one  terrible  stroke.  The  labour  of 
years  remains  unrewarded;  your  work  has  been  in  vain;  in  vain  the 
blood  your  heart  has  poured  out,  the  deprivations  you  have  sub- 
mitted to;  your  whole  past  is  like  a  bad,  disordered  dream.  Oh,  I 
understand  full  well;  I  appreciate  your  situation.  It  seems  hard, 
very  hard,  to  go  on  and  not  to  despair." 

Daniel  covered  his  face  with  his  hands  and  moaned. 

"Have  you  ever  asked  yourself  how  the  hand  of  murder  came 
to  strike  you?  Ah,  this  Philippina!  This  daughter  of  Jason 
Philip!  I  am  almost  four  hundred  years  old,  but  such  a  person 
I  have  never  seen  or  known.  But  look  back  over  your  past!  Do 
it  just  once!  Open  your  eyes;  they  are  pure  now  and  capable  of 
beholding.  Have  you  not  suffered  the  Devil  to  live  by  your  side, 
to  take  part  in  your  life?  And  were  you  not  at  the  same  time 
impatient  with  the  angels  who  spread  their  wings  about  you  as  my 
geese  spread  theirs  about  me?  The  Devil  has  grown  fat  from 
you.  The  vampire  has  battened  on  you,  has  fed  on  your  blood. 
All  this  comes  about  when  one  is  unwilling  to  give,  when  one 
merely  takes  and  takes  and  takes.  That  makes  the  Devil  fat;  the 
vampire  becomes  greedier  with  each  passing  sun.  Ah,  so  many  good 
genii  have  fled  from  you!  Many  you  have  frightened  away,  you, 
bewitched,  you,  enchanted!  Well,  what  now?  What  next?  Hell 
has  claimed  its  full  booty;  Heaven  can  now  open  again  to  your 
new-born  heart." 

"There  is  no  Heaven,"  groaned  Daniel,  "there  is  nothing  but 
blackness  and  darkness." 

"You  still  breathe,  your  heart  is  still  beating,  you  still  have 
five  fingers  on  each  hand,"  replied  the  Goose  Man  quietly.  "He 
who  has  paid  his  debts  is  a  free  man:  you  have  paid  yours." 

"I  am  my  own  debt,  my  own  guilt.  If  I  continue  to  live,  I 
will  sin  a^ain.  Were  I  to  live  over  the  past,  back  into  the  past, 
I  would  contract  the  same  debts." 

"But  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  transformation,  and  through  it 
one  receives  absolution.  Turn  away  from  your  phantom  and  be- 
come a  human  being — and  then  you  can  become  a  creator.  If  you 
once  become  hum^n,  really  human,  it  may  be  that  you  will  not 
need  the  work,  symphony  or  whatever  else  you  choose  to  call  it. 
It  may  be  that  power  and  glory  will  radiate  from  you  yourself. 
For  are  not  all  works  merely  the  round-about  ways,  the  detours  of 
the  man  himself,  merely  man's  imperfect  attempts  to  reveal  him- 


BUT  ASIDE,  WHO  IS  IT?  463 

self?  Did  you  not  love  a  mask  of  plaster  more  than  the  countenances 
that  shone  upon  you,  the  faces  that  wept  about  you?  Did  you 
not  allow  another  mask,  a  thing  of  the  mirror,  to  get  control  over 
you,  and  so  to  besmirch  your  soul  and  strike  your  spirit  with 
paralysis?  How  can  a  man  be  a  creator  if  he  deceives,  stunts,  and 
abbreviates  the  humanity  that  is  in  him?  It  is  not  a  question  of 
ability,  Daniel  Nothafft,  it  is  a  question  of  being,  living,  being." 

Daniel  tossed  his  head  back  and  forth  on  his  pillow,  writhing 
in  agony.  "Stop!"  he  gulped,  "stop,  stop!" 

The  Goose  Man  bent  over  him,  and  crouched  up  nearer  to  his 
body  like  <an  animal  trying  to  get  warm.  "Come  out  of  the  con- 
vulsion," something  cried  and  exhorted  within  him,  "break  your 
chains!  Your  music  can  give  men  nothing  so  long  as  you  yourself 
are  held  captive.  Feel  their  distress!  Have  pity  on  their  un- 
plumbed  loneliness!  Behold  mankind!  Behold  it!" 

"There  is  so  much,"  replied  Daniel  in  extreme  torture,  "a 
hundred  thousand  faces  bewilder  me,  a  hundred  thousand  pictures 
hem  me  in.  I  cannot  differentiate;  I  must  flee,  flee!" 

There  was  something  inimitably  tender,  reassuring,  and  re- 
signed in  what  the  Goose  Man  then  said:  "I  speak  to  you  as  Christ: 
Rise  and  walk!  Rise  and  go  in  peace,  Daniel!  Go  with  me  to 
my  place.  Be  me  for  just  one  day,  from  morning  to  evening, 
and  /  will  be  you." 

Daniel  got  up,  and  before  he  was  conscious  of  what  he  was 
doing,  he  had  put  on  his  clothes  and  was  out  on  the  street  with 
the  Goose  Man.  They  crossed  the  market  place,  and  Daniel,  in 
a  crepuscular  state  of  mind,  climbed  up,  with  the  help  of  the 
Goose  Man,  and  took  his  place  on  the  base  of  the  fountain  behind 
the  iron  railing.  The  two  geese  he  took  under  his  arms.  He 
stood  perfectly  still,  rigid,  just  like  the  Goose  Man,  and  waited 
in  anticipation  of  the  things  that  were  to  come. 


But  nothing  extraordinary  happened.  Everything  that  took 
place  was  quite  prosaic  and  obviously  a  matter  of  custom. 

The  sun  rose,  and  the  market  women  took  the  cords  and  covers 
from  their  baskets.  Fresh  cherries,  young  pears,  and  winter  apples 
shone  in  all  their  brilliancy  of  colour  and  lent  variety  to  the  drab 
square.  Sparrows  picked  in  the  straw  that  lay  on  the  street.  The 
sun  rose  higher;  its  early  red  gave  way  to  a  midday  blue.  Clouds 
drifted  over  the  roof  of  the  church.  The  women  gossiped. 


464  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

Wagons  rattled  by,  errand  boys  called  to  each  other,  curtains  were 
drawn  from  the  windows,  and  men  and  women  looked  out  to  see 
what  the  weather  was  going  to  be  like.  There  were  sleepy  faces 
and  anxious  faces,  good  faces  and  bad  faces,  young  and  old. 

Maids  and  humbler  housewives  came  to  make  their  purchases. 
They  examined  the  fruit  with  seasoned  care  and  experienced  hand, 
and  bargained  for  lower  prices.  The  peasant  women  praised  what 
they  had,  and  if  their  praise  was  ineffectual,  they  became  abusive. 
Once  a  sale  had  been  made,  they  would  take  their  balances,  put 
the  weights  in  one  pan  and  the  fruit  in  another,  and  never  cease 
praising  what  they  were  selling  until  they  had  the  money  safe  in 
their  pockets.  Then  they  would  count  over  the  coins  they  had 
received,  and  looked  at  them  as  if  to  say:  "It  is  fine  to  earn  money!" 

But  those  who  paid  out  the  money  bore  the  mien  of 'painful 
care  and  solicitude.  They  seemed  to  be  counting  it  all  up  in  their 
heads;  to  be  taking  lessons  in  mental  arithmetic.  They  would 
think  over  how  much  it  were  wise  or  permissible  for  them  to  spend. 
The  thing  that  impressed  Daniel  most  of  all,  and  the  longer  he 
'itood  there  the  clearer  it  became  to  him,  was  this:  Each  purchaser 
went  right  up  to  the  very  edge  of  the  territory  staked  out  for  her, 
so  to  speak,  by  some  mysterious  master.  This  they  felt  was  cor- 
rect, certain  though  they  were  that  to  have  gone  beyond  the  allotted 
limit  would  have  brought  swift  and  irremediable  ruin.  The  money 
was  paid  out  with  such  studied  caution,  and  taken  in  with  such  a 
sense  of  victory!  There  was  something  touching  about  it  all.  This 
daily  life  of  these  small  people  seemed  so  strange,  so  very  strange, 
and  at  the  same  time  so  in  accord  with  established  order:  it  seemed 
indeed  to  be  a  practical  visualisation  of  the  sanctity  of  the  law. 

In  all  the  transactions  due  respect  was  paid  to  the  formalities  of 
life,  and  nothing  was  veiled.  There  was  fulness,  but  no  confusion; 
many  words,  but  no  misunderstanding.  There  were  the  wares  and 
there  were  the  coins.  The  scales  showed  how  much  was  being 
given  and  how  much  taken.  The  fruit  wandered  from  basket  to 
basket;  and  human  arms  carried  it  home.  Each  bought  as  much  as 
could  be  paid  for;  there  was  no  thought  of  going  beyond  one's 
means 

The  clock  in  the  tower  struck  on  the  hour,  and  the  shadows 
moved  in  a  circle  about  the  objects  on  the  square.  So  it  was  to-day; 
and  so  it  had  been  four  hundred  years  ago. 

Four  hundred  years  ago  the  houses  stood  there  just  as  they  stood 
to-day,  and  people,  men  and  women,  looked  out  of  the  windows, 
some  with  kindly  some  with  embittered  faces. 


BUT  ASIDE,  WHO  IS  IT?  465 

Is  that  not  Theresa  Schimmclweis  creeping  around  the  corner? 
How  old,  decrepit,  and  bent  with  years!  Her  hair  is  stone  grey, 
her  face  is  like  lime.  She  is  poorly  dressed;  she  does  not  notice 
the  people  she  meets.  She  sees  nothing  but  the  full  baskets  of 
fruit;  for  them  she  has  a  greedy  eye.  And  she  looks  at  Daniel 
behind  the  iron  fence  with  an  expression  of  painful  astonishment. 

And  is  that  not  Frau  Hadebusch  hobbling  along  over  there! 
Though  her  face  is  that  of  a  crafty  criminal,  in  her  eyes  there  is 
a  panicky,  terrified  look.  She  has  no  support  other  than  the 
ground  beneath  her  feet;  she  is  a  poor,  lost  soul. 

There  comes  Alfons  Diruf,  who  retired  years  ago.  He  has  be- 
come stout  and  gloomy.  He  is  out  for  his  morning  walk  along  the 
city  moat.  There  goes  the  actor,  Edmund  Hahn,  seeking  whom 
he  may  devour.  Disease  and  lust  are  writ  large  across  his  jaded 
face.  There  is  the  sculptor,  Schwalbe.  He  is  secretly  buying  a 
few  apples  to  take  home  to  roast,  for  otherwise  he  has  nothing 
warm  to  eat.  And  there  is  Herr  Carovius,  ambling  along.  He 
looks  like  a  wandering  spirit,  dejected  and  exhausted. 

Beggars  pass  by,  and  so  do  the  rich.  There  are  respected  people 
who  are  greeted  by  those  who  see  them;  there  are  outcasts  who  are 
shunned.  There  are  those  who  are  happy  and  those  who  are 
weighed  down  with  grief.  Some  hasten  and  some  hesitate.  Some 
seem  to  hold  fast  to  their  lives  as  a  lover  might  hold  fast  to  his 
fiancee;  others  will  die  that  same  day.  One  has  a  child  by  the 
hand,  another  a  woman  by  the  arm.  Some  drag  crimes  in  their 
hearts,  others  walk  upright,  free,  happy  to  face  the  world.  One  is 
being  summoned  to  court  as  a  witness,  the  other  is  on  his  way  to 
the  doctor.  One  is  fleeing  from  domestic  discord,  another  is 
rejoicing  over  some  great  good  fortune.  There  is  the  man  who  has 
lost  his  purse  and  the  man  who  is  reading  a  serious  letter.  One  is 
on  his  way  to  church  to  pray,  another  to  the  cafe  to  drown  his 
sorrows.  One  is  radiant  with  joy  over  the  business  outlook,  another 
is  crushed  with  poverty.  A  beautiful  girl  has  on  her  best  dress;  a 
cripple  lies  in  the  gateway.  There  is  a  boy  who  sings  a  song,  and 
a  matron  whose  eyes  are  red  with  weeping.  The  baker  carries  his 
bread  by,  the  cobbler  his  boots.  Soldiers  are  going  to  the  barracks, 
workmen  arc  returning  from  the  factory. 

Daniel  feels  that  none  of  them  are  strangers  to  him.  He  sees 
himself  in  each  of  them.  He  is  nearer  to  them  while  standing  on 
his  elevated  position  behind  the  iron  railing  than  he  was  when  he 
walked  by  them  on  the  street.  The  jet  of  water  that  spurts  from 
him  is  like  fate:  it  flows  and  collects  in  the  basin.  Eternal  wisdom, 


466  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

he  feels,  is  streaming  up  to  him  from  the  fountain  below;  each  hour 
becomes  a  century.  However  men  may  be  constituted,  he  is  seized 
with  a  supernatural  feeling  when  he  looks  into  their  eyes.  In  all 
of  their  eyes  there  is  the  same  fire,  the  same  anxiety  and  the  same 
prayer;  the  same  loneliness,  the  same  life,  the  same  death.  In  all 
of  them  he  sees  the  soul  of  God. 

He  himself  no  longer  feels  his  loneliness;  he  feels  that  he  has 
been  distributed  among  men.  His  hate  has  gone,  dispelled  like  so 
much  smoke.  The  tones  he  hears  now  come  rushing  up  from  the 
great  fountain;  and  this  fountain  is  fed  from  the  blood  of  all 
those  he  sees  on  the  market  place.  Water  is  something  different 
now:  "It  washes  clean  man's  very  soul,  and  makes  it  like  an  angel, 
whole." 

Noon  came,  and  then  evening:  a  day  of  creation.  And  when 
evening  came,  a  mist  settled  over  the  city,  and  Daniel  came  down 
from  his  high  place  at  the  fountain,  set  the  geese  carefully  to  one 
side,  and  went  home.  He  arrived  at  the  vestibule;  he  stood  in  the 
door  of  the  room  looking  out  on  the  court.  His  eyes  beheld  a 
wonderful  sight. 

The  Goose  Man  was  sitting  playing  with  Agnes  and  little  Gott- 
fried. He  had  cut  silhouettes  from  bright  coloured  paper  and 
made  them  stand  up  on  the  table  by  bending  back  the  edge  of  the 
paper.  There  he  sat,  pushing  these  figures  into  each  other,  and 
making  such  droll  remarks  that  Agnes,  who  had  never  in  her  life 
really  laughed,  laughed  now  with  all  her  heart,  and  like  the  child 
that  she  in  truth  still  was. 

Little  Gootfried  could  only  prattle  and  clap  his  hands.  The 
Goose  Man  had  placed  him  on  the  table.  Whenever  he  made  a 
false  or  awkward  move,  the  Goose  Man  would  set  him  right.  He 
seemed  to  be  especially  skilled  at  handling  and  amusing  children. 

When  Daniel  came  in,  the  Goose  Man  got  up  and  went  over 
to  him,  greeted  him,  and  said  in  a  kindly,  confidential  tone:  "Are 
you  back  so  soon?  We  have  had  such  a  nice  time!" 

In  the  room,  however,  there  was  the  same  haze  that  had  settled 
down  over  the  city  when  Daniel  left  the  fountain.  Agnes  and 
Gottfried  were  seized  with  a  terrible  fear.  The  boy  began  to  cry; 
Agnes  threw  her  arms  around  him  and  cried  too. 

Daniel  went  up  to  them,  and  said:  "Don't  cry!  I'm  with  you. 
You  don't  need  to  cry  any  more!" 

He  sat  down  on  the  same  seat  on  which  the  Goose  Man  had 
been  sitting,  looked  at  the  tiny  paper  figures,  and,  smiling,  con- 
tinued the  game  the  Goose  Man  had  been  playing  with  them. 


BUT  ASIDE,  WHO  IS  IT?  467 

Gottfried  became  quiet  and  Agnes  happy. 

"Good-night!"  cried  the  Goose  Man,  "now  I  am  again  myself, 
and  you  are  you." 

He  nodded  kindly  and  disappeared. 

VI 

That  same  evening  six  of  Daniel's  pupils  came  in.  They  had 
heard  that  he  had  been  removed  from  his  position  at  the  con- 
servatory. 

It  was  not  a  mere  rumour.  Andreas  Doderlein  had  had  him 
discharged.  He  was  also  relieved  of  his  post  as  organist  at  St. 
/Egydius's.  The  scandal  with  which  he  had  been  associated,  and 
which  was  by  this  time  known  to  the  entire  city,  had  turned  the 
church  authorities  against  him. 

The  six  pupils  came  into  his  room  where  he  was  playing  with  his 
children.  One  of  them,  who  had  been  chosen  as  their  spokesman, 
told  him  that  they  had  made  up  their  minds  not  to  leave  him;  they 
were  anxious  to  have  him  continue  the  instruction  he  had  been 
giving  them. 

They  were  clever,  vivacious  young  chaps.  In  their  eyes  was  an 
enthusiasm  that  had  not  yet  been  dimmed  either  by  cowardice  or 
conceit. 

"I  am  not  going  to  remain  in  the  city,"  said  Daniel.  "I  am 
planning  to  return  to  my  native  Eschenbach." 

The  pupils  looked  at  each  other.  Thereupon  the  speaker  re- 
marked: "We  want  to  go  with  you."  They  all  nodded. 

Daniel  got  up  and  shook  hands  with  each  one  of  them. 

Two  days  later,  Daniel's  furniture  and  household  belongings 
had  all  been  packed.  Benda  came  to  say  good-bye:  his  work,  his 
great  duty  was  calling  him. 

At  first  Benda  could  hardly  realise  that  Daniel  was  yet  to  live 
an  active  life;  that  there  was  still  a  whole  life  in  him;  that  his 
life  was  not  merely  the  debris  of  human  existence,  the  ruins  of  a 
heart.  But  it  was  true. 

There  was  about  Daniel  the  expression,  the  bearing  of  a  man 
who  had  been  liberated,  unchained.  No  one  could  help  but  notice 
it.  Though  more  reticent  and  laconic  than  in  former  days,  his 
eyes  had  taken  on  a  new  splendour,  a  renewed  brilliancy  and 
clarity;  they  were  at  once  serious  and  cheerful.  His  mood  had 
become  milder,  his  face  more  peaceful. 

The   friends  shook  hands.      Benda  then   left   the   room   slowly, 


468  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

went  down  the  steps  slowly,  and  once  out  on  the  street  he  walked 
along  slowly:  he  felt  so  small,  so  strangely  unimportant. 


VII 

Daniel  returned  to  Eschenbach,  and  moved  into  the  house  of 
his  parents.  His  pupils  took  rooms  with  the  residents  of  the 
village. 

He  was  regarded  by  the  natives  as  a  peculiar  individual.  They 
smiled  when  they  spoke  of  him,  or  when  they  saw  him  passing 
through  the  streets  absorbed  in  his  own  thoughts.  But  it  was  not  a 
malicious  smile.  If  there  was  the  faintest  tinge  of  ridicule  in  it  at 
first,  it  soon  gave  way  to  a  vague  feeling  of  pride. 

He  gained  a  mysterious  influence  over  people  with  whom  he  came 
in  contact;  many  sought  his  advice  when  in  trouble.  His  pupils 
especially  adored  him.  He  had  the  gift  of  holding  their  attention, 
of  carrying  them  along.  The  means  he  employed  were  the  very 
simplest:  his  splendid,  cheerful  personality,  the  harmony  between 
what  he  said  and  what  he  did,  his  earnestness,  his  humanness,  his 
resignation  to  the  cause  that  lay  close  to  his  heart,  and  his  own  belief 
in  this  cause — those  were  the  means  through  which  and  by  which 
he  gained  a  mysterious  influence  over  those  with  whom  he  came  in 
touch. 

He  became  a  famous  teacher;  the  number  of  pupils  who  wished 
to  study  under  him  increased  from  year  to  year.  But  he  admitted 
very  few  of  them  to  his  classes.  He  took  only  the  best;  and  the 
certainty  with  which  he  made  his  selections  and  differentiated  was 
wellnigh  infallible. 

No  inducements  of  any  kind  could  persuade  him  to  leave  the 
isolated  place  where  he  had  elected  to  live. 

He  was  almost  always  in  a  good  humour;  he  was  never  dis- 
tracted; and  the  preciseness  and  sharpness  with  which  he  observed 
whatever  took  place  was  remarkable.  The  one  thing  that  could 
throw  him  into  a  rage  was  to  see  some  one  abuse  a  dumb  beast. 
Once  he  got  into  trouble  with  a  teamster  who  was  beating  his  skinny 
old  jade  in  order  to  make  it  pull  a  load  that  was  far  in  excess  of  its 
strength.  The  boys  on  the  street  made  fun  of  him;  the  people 
laughed  with  considerable  satisfaction,  and  said:  "Ah,  the  professor: 
he's  a  bit  off." 

Agnes  kept  house  for  him;  she  was  most  faithful  in  looking  out 
for  his  wants.  When  he  would  leave  the  house,  she  would  bring 
him  his  hat  and  walking  stick.  Every  evening  before  she  went  to 


BUT  ASIDE,  WHO  IS  IT?  469 

sleep,  he  would  come  in  to  her  and  kiss  her  on  the  forehead.  It 
was  rare  that  they  spoke  with  each  other,  but  there  was  a  secret 
zgreement,  a  peaceful  harmony,  between  them. 

Gottfried  grew  up  to  be  a  strong,  healthy  boy.  He  had  Daniel's 
physique  and  ELanore's  eyes.  Yes,  they  were  the  eyes  with  that 
blue  fire;  and  they  had  Eleanore's  elfin-like  chastity  and  her  hatred 
of  all  that  is  false  and  simulated.  Daniel  saw  in  this  a  freak  of 
nature  of  the  profoundest  significance.  All  the  laws  of  blood 
seemed  unsubstantial  and  shadowy.  His  feelings  often  wandered 
between  gratitude  and  astonishment. 

Of  Dorothea  he  heard  one  day  that  she  was  making  her  living 
as  a  violinist  in  a  woman's  orchestra.  He  made  some  inquiries  and 
traced  her  as  far  as  Berlin.  There  he  lost  her.  A  few  years  later 
he  was  told  that  she  had  become  the  mistress  of  a  wealthy  country 
gentleman  in  Bohemia,  and  was  driving  about  in  an  automobile  on 
the  Riviera. 

He  was  also  informed  of  the  death  of  Herr  Carovius.  His  last 
hours  were  said  to  have  been  very  hard:  he  had  kept  crying  out, 
"My  flute,  give  me  my  flute!" 


In  August,  1909,  Daniel's  pupils  celebrated  the  fiftieth  birthday 
of  their  master.  They  made  him  a  great  number  of  presents,  and 
gave  him  a  dinner  in  the  inn  at  the  Sign  of  the  Ox. 

One  of  his  pupils,  an  extremely  handsome  young  fellow  for 
whose  future  Daniel  had  the  highest  of  hopes,  presented  him  with  a 
huge  bouquet  of  orange  lilies,  wild  natives  of  the  woods  around 
Eschenbach.  He  had  gathered  them  himself,  and  arranged  them  in 
a  costly  vase. 

The  menu  at  the  dinner  was  quite  frugal;  the  wine  was 
Franconian  country  wine.  During  the  dinner,  Daniel  rose,  took  his 
glass  in  his  hand,  and,  with  a  far-away  look  in  his  eyes,  said:  "I 
drink  to  the  health  and  happiness  of  a  creature  who  is  a  stranger 
to  all  of  you.  She  grew  up  here  in  Eschenbach.  Many  years  ago 
she  vanished  in  a  most  mysterious  way.  But  I  know  that  she  is 
alive  and  happy  at  this  hour." 

His  pupils  all  raised  their  glasses.  They  looked  at  him,  and 
were  deeply  moved  by  the  strength  and  clarity  of  his  features. 

After  the  dinner  he  and  his  pupils  went  to  the  old  church.  He 
had  both  of  the  large  doors  opened  so  that  the  bright  light  of  day 
might  pour  in  unimpeded.  Up  in  the  lofty  vaults  of  the  nave, 


470  THE  GOOSE  MAN 

where  all  had  been  dark  but  a  moment  ago,  there  was  now  a  milky 
clearness  and  cheerfulness. 

He  went  to  the  organ  and  began  to  play.  Some  men  md  women 
who  chanced  to  be  passing  by  came  in  and  sat  down  on  the  benches 
with  the  boys.  Then  a  group  of  children  entered.  They  tripped 
timidly  through  the  open  doors,  stopped,  looked  around,  and 
opened  their  eyes  as  wide  as  children  can.  Other  people  came  in; 
for  the  tones  of  the  organ  had  penetrated  the  humble  homes. 
They  looked  up  at  the  organ  silently  and  seriously;  for  its  exalted 
melodies  had,  without  their  being  prepared  for  it,  carried  them 
away  from  their  everyday  existence,  and  lifted  them  up  above  its 
abject  lowliness. 

The  tones  grew  louder  and  louder,  until  they  sounded  like  the 
prayer  of  a  heart  overflowing  with  feeling.  As  the  close  of  the 
great  hymn  drew  on,  a  little  girl  was  heard  weeping  from  among 
the  uninvited  auditors. 

It  was  Agnes  who  wept.  Had  life  been  fully  awakened  in  her? 
Was  love  calling  her  out  into  the  unknown?  Was  the  life  of  her 
mother  being  repeated  in  her? 

Children  grow  up  and  are  seized  by  their  fate. 

Toward  evening,  Daniel  took  a  walk  with  his  nine  pupils  out 
over  the  meadow.  They  went  quite  far.  The  last  song  of  the 
birds  had  died  out,  the  glow  of  the  sun  had  turned  pale. 

The  beautiful  youth,  then  walking  by  Daniel's  side,  said:  "And 
the  work,  Master?" 

Daniel  merely  smiled;  his  eye  roamed  over  the  landscape. 

The  landscape  shows  many  shades  of  green.  Around  the  weirs 
the  grass  is  higher,  so  high  at  times  that  one  can  see  nothing  of  the 
geese  but  their  beaks.  Were  it  not  for  their  cackling,  one  might 
take  these  beaks  for  strangely  mobile  flowers. 


THE    END 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 

COLLEGE  LIBRARY 

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